...all through the house, not a creature was stirring...

Gifts wrapped for the kids, Pat's just home from church, peppermint-bark-brownies are done, candy set out, stuffing ingredients prepared... it sounds like a lot of bother, perhaps, but it feels like one of the perks of parenting. Comfy and cuddly and loving and giving :).

Merry Christmas, to those who observe it!

( our tree, this year )

A good feasting...

This morning... patgreene and I heard the kids up around 6am, but chose to roll over and pretend to ignore it as long as we could, until they actually came in to try to wake us (around 7:30am). I held out until 8... then we insisted that they had to wait until after the turkey was stuffed and in the oven (had to get it going early, it was 24 lbs) and after making and eating breakfast before opening any gifts. Then I distributed...

( kids and packages and PJs )

After they opened one gift each in successive rounds, the delighted cackles and shrieks faded into excited descriptions...

I went to work then on dinner, getting yeast rolls going, then sweet potato souffle (zoned with toppings of marshmallows and/or pecan halves), gravy, the rest of the stuffing, cranberry sauce, and then Pat made fruit salad including some tangerines from our backyard tree. The turkey came out around 1pm, shortly after tenacious_snail arrived... thanks to having two functional ovens, we were ready 20 minutes early, before our planned 2pm dinnertime.

( Christmas dinner at my house... )

The turkey was perfect -- moist breast, dark meat very slightly pink still. Nice balance to the sweet potatoes. The cornbread stuffing was good, perhaps could have used just a tad more sage. My rolls turned out very well this time (better yeast than last year's attempt) and drew compliments. Two dozen disappeared. And the tiny purple container near Les is cranberry-orange sauce from dawnd (that I'd been hoarding since Thanksgiving ;)... hours and dishes and a 1+ mile walk later, there were chocolate-mint-frosted brownies and pumpkin pie for dessert. Followed by telephone calls to my mom and dad, and from Pat's relatives.

We sat and chatted and watched the kids play with their new toys and video games, and played a new historical trivia board game of Pat's ("Reminisce") while boiling down the stripped turkey bones for stock... Pat took the boys out for a drive tonight, to look at Christmas house lights.

Gift-wise... I was blessed with an abundance this year. Abundance in friends, in love, in family (both born and chosen), in opportunities and intense moments and in health and material goodies. Of the latter, a few new things arrived today in commemoration of the holiday... workout sneakers (good thing, after all of the food!) from the boys, an RF audio transmitter and new Casio watch from patgreene, a new wallet from James, several gift cards, Oban 14-yr from suspira20, a manicure kit. "A History of Almost Everything" from geekchick (who has excellent taste :), a deposit on a HAI Level 2 from tenacious_snail (hopefully in late February), and a Sirius satellite radio receiver for the minivan (from my parents, shared with Pat... James was dismayed "now we'll have to listen for hours to Broadway showtunes! Augh!").