Christmas

Over all, this has been a really nice Christmas. It seems like the whole season lacked some of the rush that is normally there, probably because I wasn't working. Shopping was tremendously uncomplicated, and it left everything much more open to enjoy the progress of Advent toward Christ's birth, and also enjoying my family through the month.

The Christmas Eve service was wonderful, followed by our tradition of eating late (some Christmas Eve's later than others. This was a really late one). I found out that this is actually a tradition in some cultures. A friend on Facebook mentioned that they were having dinner at the stroke of midnight, and called it Noche Buena. Other friends mentioned that their French-Canadian relatives did the same thing and called it Reveillon. Since it was so late, we sent the kids to bed and decorated our tree today after presents (had to get those packages out of the way).

After church today, we had some eggs and then opened presents. I'm going to enjoy mine. The kids got me a mandoline, which I have wanted for years. Jeff had me pick out a new food processor. My little Braun is sixteen years old, and was a nice size for the two of us, but I need more sophistication for the way I cook now. We spent the day enjoying each other and learning how to use the new Wii Fit that we got as our family gift. That's been a lot of fun. It was an amazing family day. Have I mentioned that I have great kids?

Dinner was roasted cauliflower-curry soup, broiled salmon with hollandaise sauce, asparagus, pumpkin pie with an almond meal crust, and maple-coconut milk ice cream.