I don't have a real narrative arc for these events, so I'm just going to list some observations from this year's Penguin Day that I would like to remember....
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C's favorite gift from me was also the cheapest. He adored the list of fun facts I made for him, and read the whole thing out loud, making appropriately Letterman-esque comments and expressions, the moment he got it. He keeps making references to it, too. I was surprised that his favorite "fact" seemed to be this: The Japanese version of “Night Fever” translates “Night Fever/ We know how to do it” as “Night thermal we have known the method of doing that.”

His second favorite gift was-- surprise surprise-- a flashlight. I found a crank flashlight that also has a compass, a radio, and a USB port so it can be used to recharge cell phones or iPods.
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We narrowly avoided a common holiday problem in our household. C and I almost bought each other the same DVD. Our TV show and movie preferences overlap quite a bit, so we have secretly bought each other the same item (The Life of Brian, for instance!) before. This year I bought Henry for C and he almost got it for me, but luckily he got sidetracked and forgot about it.

The Dark Knight seemed like such an obvious choice for one of us that no one ended up getting it, which I thought was funny.
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C's mom took a bite of one of my molasses people, looked puzzled, and said, "I can hardly taste the maple in this."

"That's because there's no maple in it."

C apparently told her they were maple cookies! No one ate any of them except for C's parents and me. I don't know why people go so crazy for the cutout sugar cookies. To me, they don't taste like much more than sugar and grease. I love making them, but I never eat them because they just don't taste good enough to justify the calories. Give me molasses any day!
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I felt like I was on fire with my gift choices this year. I probably spent a little less than normal, but people really went crazy over what I gave them. Julie thought the bra was hilarious. At Big Lots I also found travel toothbrush and compact mirror sets with "fine art" printed on them. I got my mom American Gothic and Julie The Scream, and they laughed like crazy.

C's dad is hard to buy for since his primary hobby is sleeping. This year I went with homemade gifts and made him a bunch of train cutout cookies since he likes trains. He thought they were so cool-- especially the coal cars loaded with mini chocolate chip "coal." He also said at Thanksgiving that he would like to try out their bread machine, now that he has more free time since his retirement. I found a book with mix recipes and made him some bread machine mixes. He seemed really excited about those too.

C's dad was also excited about a gift for me. C got me a pizza stone, and his dad made it clear that I was more than welcome to try it out at their house. Ha!
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My funniest gift from C-- Yesterday he took me to the grocery store and said he had wanted to get me some new hot cereal (something I hadn't tried yet), but he hadn't had the chance. (As if I would EVER pass up a chance to go to the grocery store. Of course he hadn't been there without me.) We went to the natural food section and found some Bob's Red Mill five grain. I'll bet there aren't too many people out there who would think of that as a great gift, but I did.
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One sad note-- Harold Pinter died. He was a playwright and has a special place of significance for C and me. Our first "date" (though we never would have considered it a date at the time-- calling it such is a retroactive ruling) was when C asked me to go see Pinter's The Birthday Party with him. It may be a strangely ominous note for the beginning of a relationship, but we were in grad school and studying literature, and we're a little weird besides. I can't think of a better tribute than to end this post with a pause.