Post-Christmas Post

Another Christmas has come and gone, this one flashing by like a comet. Somewhere in the middle of December I realized the month was flying by, and it certainly didn’t slow down any as Christmas approached. Last week was a flurry of last minute shopping and visiting with friends, all of course while putting in a daily appearance at work.

Saturday – Christmas Eve Eve - we packed up our new truck and headed north to my sister’s place in Huntsville. And thank gawd for the new vehicle, as Santa’s sleigh had nothing on the amount of presents we fit into the back! With gifts for Mom, Dad, Janet, Drew, Ian, Andrew, and of course our own gifts for each other and Lilo – not to mention all of the presents for the three of us from Vone’s family in Manitoba – we didn’t wait long to put the cargo capacity of the Ford Escape to the test.

We ate like kings for three days, sharing the dinner duties amongst the three family-units. Mom and Dad started things off deliciously on Christmas Eve Eve with homemade seafood chowder – Dad’s from-scratch and very awesome recipe which was kicked-up an extra notch by the fresh cod fillets, crab meat, jumbo shrimp, and baseball-sized scallops that I picked up on Saturday morning from the St Lawrence Market. Vone and I followed up on Christmas Eve with lemon and coriander chicken Tikka on basmati rice, homemade tandoori chicken, and some not-so homemade but very yummy Samosas from an awesome little supermarket in our neighbourhood. Christmas dinner was the traditional roasted turkey, but Dad and Janet dug up a full menu from the Our Compliments magazine in IGA’s and Sobeys’s that included roasted Balsamic fig asparagus, maple baby carrots with bacon and rosemary, forest mushroom and pine nut stuffing, and scalloped Yukon gold and sweet potatoes. Yum-ma.

Christmas day was again, a flurry of activity (there seems to be a reoccurring theme here…). With nine people in the house, three of which are under 6, the gift wrapping starts very early, takes many hours, and is punctuated by various screams of joy and excitement, as well as occasional tears and tantrums. Thank goodness the Christmas Eve drinks were consumed in moderation, as this would have been very difficult to take with even the slightest of hangovers. After a couple cups of coffee, it was a total blast – seeing Andrew and Ian get so excited over all of their super-cool gifts was a lot of fun. (and they did get a lot of cool shit!). Lilo clearly doesn’t comprehend this whole Christmas thing yet, but she does know toys, and she loves wrapping paper, and I think she feeds off our excitement for the whole thing.

Our Christmas visit with my family was short this year. After just 3 days, we returned to the city on Boxing Day night as Vone is working the latter half of this week. Lilo and I have spent the week at home, with my off work and her on a little holiday from day care. Three days later, and we’re still discovering the various features of all of her Christmas presents. It’s been a great couple of days though I honestly wish the bulk of the fun could happen after noon, instead of so early in the morning as Lilo seems to like. But apparently 8AM really is the best time of the day to catalog all of the sounds from the various buttons and gizmos on her new Diego Cruiser.