heavenly_pearl | Entries tagged with christmas

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate! It's been a tough year for everyone, but I hope you were able to find a little joy in the holiday at least.

My tree this year! I was able to do something I've been wanting to do for a few years -- decorate the tree with (mainly) skate ornaments. There are a few filler ornaments and sentimental favorites, but the vast majority of it is covered in skates.

As for gifts, my sister gave me an adorable pair of Luna slipper socks, a Sailor Moon umbrella, and a Fruits Basket Tohru Funko Pop that's on pre-order, so I'll have to wait for it to come out. I also got a couple more skate ornaments for my tree (except they're actually boots; Mom didn't notice they don't have blades on them), a really pretty skate pendant necklace, a couple of pieces of wall decor, a new bedding set, the live-action Mulan Blu-Ray, the animated Mulan/Mulan II DVD set (to make up for the one Mom got rid of years ago without my permission), new CDs from Josh Groban and Andrea Bocelli, new masks (of course!), a tumbler, and slippers, along with the usual clothes, candy, and money.

Current Mood: grateful
Current Music: Santa Claus Is Coming To Town

...and Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it! I hope you had a wonderful day.

I don't think I ever got around to posting my tree this year, so here it is:

I mentioned my goal was to eventually have a tree of mostly skate ornaments and my family decided to run with it, gifting me not only with some new ornaments, but some other skating-related decor!

Other things I got this year: clothes, several pairs of slipper socks, a Christmas mug, the new Celine Dion CD, Stella Color wedding figurines of Usagi, Rei, and Ami (I'll post a pic during my next Merchandise Round-up), the limited edition Blu-Ray set of the first part of the Fruits Basket remake, and a bunch of other anime DVDs/Blu-Rays from Sentai Filmworks's awesome Black Friday sale. (Season 1 & 2 Haikyu! DVD sets, The World Is Still Beautiful DVD set, Clannad: The Motion Picture DVD, Love Stage Blu-Ray set, Hataraki Man Blu-Ray set, Hitorijime 'My Hero' Blu-Ray set, Land of the Lustrous Blu-Ray set, Dive!! Blu-Ray set, and Princess Principal Blu-Ray set -- mostly blind buys! But at the prices they were going for, not much of a risk.)

Current Mood: good
Current Music: Adeste Fideles

...but Merry Christmas to everybody who celebrates it!

It was a nice Christmas. We did things a little differently this year. Usually we do most of our celebrating on Christmas Eve, but this year, we went to my sister's house on the 24th, saving presents and dinner for today. My sister and her family got me the new Sailor Moon Monopoly game and a Sailor Moon coloring book, while my parents gave me some clothes, a pretty vanity set, a decorative skate figure (similar to the one you can see in my tree pic from a couple of entries ago, which I got for my birthday), some anime DVDs (which Mom bought from me from my Sentai order last month), candy, and a little cash.

The best gift, though, wasn't even mine! My mom's iPad started acting weird a couple of days ago, pretty much rendering it unusual. (She broke the screen a year or so ago but had been able to use it just fine until now.) She was pretty upset about it, but my sister and her husband surprised her by buying her a new one last minute as her Christmas gift. She was so shocked! It was awesome. And I was pretty happy, too, because I had gotten her an iTunes card, so my gift didn't end up as a waste after all!

Current Mood: good

Here's my Christmas tree for this year!

And...here's an early Christmas present!

The Longest Night (also posted at AO3)

This is the "missing" chapter of Spirit of Fire I mentioned I was working on, taking place immediately after Chapter Two. I'm not entirely happy with it to be honest, but I'm not sure how many people are even interested in these extra SOF stories after so many years, so I guess it's good enough. Now that I got it out of my system, I can get back to work on finishing Friends With Benefits.

(BTW, I actually just finished another story...but I'm going to keep it a surprise for now. All I'll say is that it's not a Sailor Moon or a Kaleido Star fic, but it is for a fandom I've written for previously. I still have a little more polishing to do on it, but I'll get it posted some time next week, probably.)

Current Mood: groggy

Guys, Sentai Filmwork's Pre-Black Friday sale is RIDICULOUS! Especially if you're like me and don't really care if you buy DVD or Blu-Ray as long as it is cheap. The prices are so good that I actually blind bought some series, which I almost never do, but, hey, when everything is so cheap, it's hard to reach the $75 minimum for free shipping! I figure if it turns out I don't like them, I can just resell them on eBay.

Anyway, this is what I ordered:

Chihayafuru Complete Collection DVD
Chihayafuru Season 2 Complete Collection DVD
CLAMP School Detectives Complete Collection DVD
Girlish Number Complete Collection Blu-Ray (This was the most expensive thing I bought, and it was still only $7.99!)
Living For The Day After Tomorrow Complete Collection DVD (Blind buy)
Love, Chunibyo, and Other Delusions Complete Collection DVD (Half blind buy -- I actually just started watching it on Crunchyroll, but since I'm already in love with it, I decided I might as well just buy it. Hopefully, the rest is as good as the beginning!)
Love, Chunibyo, and Other Delusions - Heart Throb - Complete Collection DVD (Blind buy)
Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun Complete Collection DVD
Natsuyuki Rendezvous Complete Collection DVD
One Week Friends Complete Collection DVD
Psychic Detective Yakumo Complete Collection DVD (Blind buy)
Taisho Baseball Girls Complete Collection DVD (Blind buy)
Tanaka-kun is Always Listless Complete Collection DVD
Watamote: No Matter How I Look At It, It's You Guys' Fault I'm Not Popular Complete Collection DVD (Blind buy)

Fourteen sets for about $82 (once tax was included)! See, ridiculous.

Oh, while I'm thinking about it, it's almost time to send out Christmas/holiday cards, so if you want to receive a card from me or if you have moved since last year, you can either PM me or comment to this entry with your address. Comments will be screened.

Current Mood: excited

It's been a while since I've talked about new Sailor Moon merchandise I've bought, so here's what I've added to my collection since November.

This is probably my favorite new buy: a Proplica Moon Chalice! I've been wanting and wanting and WANTING something from the Proplica line, but everything is just so incredibly expensive, so when I found this baby on eBay for around $50, I had to get it. Regular price is more like $100, so a very good deal. Unfortunately, it needs a special type of battery to light up. I didn't really see much of a point in buying one just to light it up once or twice, so I just found a YouTube video that shows what it does. Good enough!

( Read more... )

Current Mood: dorky

I hope yours turned out better than mine, because mine was kinda crappy...and I mean that literally. The night before Christmas Eve, I got sick with diarrhea and vomiting (on top of it being that time of the month), so we ended up having to cancel our usual celebration with my sister and her family. (They're coming over Wednesday instead.) I'm feeling better today, but, yeah, so not fun.

We did open presents today. My gifts were mostly clothes, but I did get some cash, a Sailor Uranus Tamashii Buddy, a gashapon Kaleidomoon Scope wand (which I already have, so I'll be selling it on eBay), a Sailor Pluto wall scroll, your name. DVD, and best of all...a Bluray player! Yes, I'm finally joining the 21st century. I figured it was about time to upgrade when Sentai Filmworks announced that they are planning to stop producing DVDs. To be honest, I'll probably still continue buying DVDs for as long as possible since anime DVDs are usually way cheaper than Blurays, and y'all know how much I like saving money, but it'll be nice to have when the time comes. (And I'll finally be able to watch the extras that come on the Viz Sailor Moon Blurays I have, which reminds me that I need to pre-order the first SuperS set with some of my Christmas money.)

Current Mood: okay

First, since it's almost Christmas, here's a pic of my bedroom tree, which is kinda Sailor Moon/Yuri on Ice inspired. Obviously, you can see the SM Petit Charas and the YOI Funko Pops under the tree, but I also used skate and "Silver Crystal" ornaments! The second pic shows one of the crystals better since they're pretty small and hard to see.

I also finally got around to watching Le Movement Final, the last Sera Myu, and it was really good! I was a little worried I might not like it because I'm just not a huge fan of the Stars arc in the manga, but while the show did stick pretty close to the manga, I thought it worked better in a more condensed form.

( Spoilers below! )

Current Mood: geeky
Current Music: O Come All Ye Faithful - Josh Groban

And I got one!

The best part is that most of those presents were total surprises. I knew I was getting the Sailor Moon S boxset, the Princess Serenity figure, and some of the Funko Pop figures, but I didn't expect any of the rest of it. Missing from the picture are three really cute Sailor Moon T-shirts. (Oh, and the SuperS Edition Petit Chara set with itty-bitty Helios! That, unfortunately, didn't arrive in time for Christmas. It was supposed to be released at the end of November, but I guess there was a delay or something. Right Stuf just sent it off a couple of days ago, so it should get here sometime next week.) For some reason, I got two of the same tumblers and keychains, but, oh, well, I guess I'll just sell the extras on eBay.

Other presents:

( The loot )

Merry Christmas and happy holidays! Hope it's a good one.

Current Mood: happy

I just wanted to show off some really cool Sailor Moon stuff I recently bought from eBay (all from the same seller) that came in today. (Don't mind the glitter... That's where my Christmas tree was, and I haven't gotten around to cleaning it up yet. They're not going to stay there anyway.)

Pretty awesome, right? I'm especially in love with the Super Sailor Moon karaoke machine, circa probably the mid-90s. I had to pay close to $50 for her, but it was definitely worth it. She'd never really been taken out of the box, so she was still in working order. When you press her brooch, it plays an instrumental version of Moonlight Densetsu that you can sing along with. What's funny is that I first came across her on this French Sailor Moon collection site a couple of weeks ago and instantly fell in love, but figured I would never find one for sale. So imagine how happy I was when one actually did show up on eBay -- and at a fairly reasonable price to boot! The other three items are a Pluto magnet, a Pluto cell phone strap, and another fun item: a SuperS jigsaw puzzle/dry erase board, all from the 90s as well, I believe. Definitely old merchandise, but in great condition.

( Close-up pics )

In other exciting news, I won a $25 gift certificate to Right Stuf, thanks to the Christmas giveaway over at one of my favorite manga review sites, Manga Test Drive. Would have been nice to have during their Christmas sale, but I'm sure I won't have any trouble finding something else to spend it on!

Current Mood: excited

(The tree in my bedroom)

Hope everybody who celebrates it has a wonderful holiday! As usual, we did most of our celebrating yesterday. It was a great day, with lots of yummy food and good company! It was also the first Christmas that my nephew kinda got what was going on, which was fun, although he got bored after opening the first few presents and just wanted to play with all his new toys. *laughs* As for me, I got:

( Presents )

Christmas also means Right Stuf's annual Christmas sale. So far I've bought:

Ceres: Celestial Legend DVD boxset
Aria The Animation DVD litebox
Aria The Natural Part 1 & 2 DVD litebox
The Familiar of Zero Seasons 2 & 3
Space Brothers Collection 1, 2, 6

I also plan to order Season 4 of The Familiar of Zero and Collections 3 & 4 of Space Brothers, but I think I'm going to hold off on those until the very last day of the sale, just in case they put up a Mega Deal I might want. BTW, Space Brothers is amazing! I've just streamed the first 26 episodes, but I fell in love with it almost right from the start, so when I saw the sets on sale, I decided to stop streaming and just buy it. (Unfortunately, I missed the Mega Deal on Collection 5, but I'll pick it up eventually.)

Current Mood: good

Happy Thanksgiving to all the Americans reading this!

Current Mood: contemplative

Right Stuf has already started their annual holiday sale? And it doesn't seem like the sale listings will be limited to the usual twelve days?

Man, they're trying to make me go bankrupt, aren't they? Well, at least the first day doesn't have anything I particularly want, but I'm sure that'll change as the weeks go on... (And let's just ignore the fact that I haven't even finished watching all the stuff I bought last year yet.)

Current Mood: nerdy

Man, today I'm especially glad Viz is rereleasing the original Sailor Moon anime. I just got finished with my annual Christmastime rewatch of the S movie, which I only have on video, and I think the tape is beginning to go bad. When I first put it in, the picture was absolutely horrible, jumping everywhere and making it very difficult to watch. I finally remembered to fiddle with the tracking, which helped for a little while, but near the end it started going wonky again. Ugh, I seriously cannot wait until I can finally replace it with a new DVD! I wonder how Viz is planning to release the movies... All three of them sold together in a boxset, released after the rest of the series? Sold individually, around the same time as the respective season is released? Or maybe they'll include them as an extra in the half-season boxsets? It sure would be nice if I could get a new copy of the movie before next Christmas. I don't think I can stand rewatching that tape again next year... And now I'm rethinking my decision not to replace my Card Captor Sakura collection (combo of VHS and DVD) with the new rerelease. It probably would be best to replace those tapes, too. I was hoping Right Stuf would include the new boxsets in the holiday sale, but no such luck, so I guess I'll just have to keep my eye out for a decent price (or hope they're under the Christmas tree).

(FYI: If you haven't bought the first SM boxset yet (or maybe want to buy another set to give as a gift), the Blu-Ray/DVD combo set is included in the Right Stuf sale and going for only $49.99, which is a pretty great deal.)

Current Mood: annoyed

We actually celebrated Christmas yesterday, since my sister and her husband were in town. They just left a few minutes ago, but they gave me the best Christmas gift: a Nook Simple Touch! When Laura and I were shopping at Barnes & Noble on Black Friday, they had a fantastic sale on Nooks, and I mentioned to her that I had been thinking about getting one -- even considered taking advantage of the sale myself -- but since I had already asked her for a couple of Sims 3 expansion packs, I wasn't expecting her to buy me one, so that was a really nice surprise! Unfortunately, though, the digital manga volume I bought (Red River Vol. 15) apparently doesn't work on the Simple Touch. :( Guess I'll still have to eventually upgrade to a tablet if I want something to store a lot of digital manga on, but in the meantime, I downloaded the Nook app on my iPod touch so I could at least read the volume I already bought. To my surprise, it's actually pretty readable, even on such a small screen. It's not a permanent solution to my manga overflow problem, since I don't have that much room left on my iPod, but I suppose it'll do for now.

Any suggestions for non-manga books I might want to check out?

As for the rest of my gifts:

( The Loot )

I think that's about it. It was a pretty nice Christmas!

Oh, it's already been a year since he joined the family, but I finally have a photo to share of my cat, Angel:

Angel

Isn't he just the cutest? (He and my brother-in-law are buddies. ^_^)

Remember earlier this year, when I mentioned I had started a Percy/Penelope Christmas fic set during Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets but had decided to put it on hold until it was closer to Christmas? Well, even though I just remembered its existence a little over a week ago, I actually managed to finish it! Private Christmas has been posted at all the usual places, including my writing journal,

oyster_shell. I wish I could have spent a little more time on it before posting, but I wanted to get it out before Christmas, so I hope you enjoy it as is. Merry Christmas and happy holidays!

Gah, I'm supposed to be focusing on Melting Ice, so why do I keep getting plot bunnies for other stories? It's so frustrating!

Somehow, despite my resolve to focus only on Melting Ice, I've started two -- TWO! -- more stories over the course of the last month. One is a Harry Potter Christmas story. I've been rereading the series, and while reading the Christmas chapter in CoS where Harry and Ron are trying to sneak into the Slytherins' common room, I was curious as to what exactly Percy and Penelope were up to in the dungeons. I've written a couple of scenes so far, but I think I've managed to convince myself to wait until closer to Christmas to continue it. By then, Melting Ice should be done (hopefully), and it'll be more fun to write when it's actually Christmas time.

The second story is much more of a problem, because I really, really, REALLY want to write it now. Has anybody read the manga Demon Love Spell? I picked up the first two volumes last week and really enjoyed them. It's about the unlikely romance between a Shinto priestess and a sex-crazed incubus, and it reminded me that I always did want to wrhite a Helios/Chibi-Usa story featuring an incubus as a villain. I actually did use an incubus and a succubus as minor monsters in one of my first fanfics (Star-Crossed Lovers, I think?), but this story line is a lot more interesting, in which a revenge-seeking incubus takes the guise of Helios and seduces Chibi-Usa in her dreams, eventually managing to convince her to live with him in her dreams forever. The real Helios then has to find a way to awaken her from her never-ending dream before she dies.

Man, I'd much rather be working on that than Melting Ice... I'm so stuck on that story, it's not even funny. *sigh* Maybe it would be better to work on something else for at least a couple of weeks...

Current Mood: frustrated

This will forever be known as the year of the Christmas Black-out.

Yeah, the electricity went out around eleven a.m. on the worst possible day of the year, and just came back on a few minutes ago (about 5:20 p.m). It didn't bother us much since we celebrated our Christmas on Sunday and didn't really have any plans beyond maybe watching some Christmas movies, but I feel so terrible for everybody else. Imagine, spending most of Christmas Day in the dark! And if you were depending on an electric oven to cook Christmas dinner, your plans were pretty much ruined. I know our neighbors across the street were halfway finished cooking their turkey when the power went out. I don't know what they're going to do.

The power actually went out last night, too, in the middle of Midnight Mass. Just for a couple of minutes, but it was pretty crazy. I thought it was because they had the Christmas tree and a couple of wreaths lit, overloading the breaker, but maybe it was just a preview of things to come!

On the flip side of things, my lucky sister is having a real White Christmas! She and her husband are over at her in-laws, and it started snowing there around one. No fair! I wanted it to snow here...

Well, anyway, Merry Christmas to all who are celebrating today!

Current Mood: surprised

I love Christmas movies, but one thing always bugs me about them. You know how Santa Claus usually turns out to be real after all? Why are the parents always surprised by this? If he was real, the parents would have to know, because every year (and not just the year that Santa Claus is "proven") there would be presents under the tree that they didn't buy. Okay, maybe some people are absent-minded enough that they might think they just forgot about buying that particular present, but certainly not all of them. The "Santa Claus is real" plotline, as enjoyable as it may be, just doesn't work when you think about it logically.

Current Mood: cynical

Finally, cold weather! I'm sitting here at my desk, drinking a steaming cup of hot chocolate, listening to Celine Dion's Christmas album, and contemplating wrapping presents today. I think I will. It just feels like a present-wrapping day!

Speaking of presents, I bought quite a few for myself during Right Stuf's 12 Days of Saving sale. ^_^ I still can't believe how much I saved! I only(!) spent about $300, but my savings added up to more like $550. That means I got everything for roughly a third of the combined retail price! Seriously, if you're an anime/manga fan (or need to find a gift for one), I definitely recommend checking it out. The sale ends this Friday, though, so don't wait too long.

So, what did I get?

Black Butler Season 2
El Cazador de la Bruja
Figure 17 *
Genshiken Season 2 *
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood Cols. 1 & 2
Princess Resurrection Cols. 1 & 2 (They were only $9 each!)
Someday's Dreamers II Sora * (Squee! So looking forward to this!)
The Wallflower
Witchblade
Cross Game manga bundle (The entire series for just $62!)
Kimi ni Todoke Vol. 10 *

(Those marked with an asterix weren't actually a part of the holiday sale, but other than the Kimi ni Todoke volume, they were still a part of the usual weekly bargains. Actually got even better deals on some of those, especially on Figure 17. Thirty dollars for a $180 set? Yes, please!)

Current Mood: cold
Current Music: "Ave Maria" - Celine Dion

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heavenly_pearl

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Sweet Dreams

Entries tagged with christmas

Christmas

Happy Holidays

It's almost over...

More SOF

Sale!

Merchandise Round-up!

Merry Christmas

Le Movement Final

I'm dreaming of a Sailor Moon Christmas...

Happy Belated 2016!

Merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving

Oh, no

VHS sucks

Merry Christmas Eve!

Christmas fic

Just what I need...

I'm Dreaming of a...Black Christmas?

A random holiday thought

It's Beginning To Feel A Lot Like Christmas!