How Was Your Christmas?

Finally getting a chance to sit down and talk about last week.
Let's see, let's see... oh yes, Christmas!

As I mentioned a little earlier, Hotness and I had a very nice day.
With the intention of getting up early, Hotness staggered out of bed and walked into the living room where she layed back down on the couch and went to sleep again.
I got up shortly afterwards, noticed she was sleeping and hid in my office to check email and stuff.

Around 9:00ish or so, I figured I'd better wake her up if we were ever going to 'have' Christmas, since we also had to visit friends and family later that day.
So I made a pot of coffee and some toast, then we sat in front of the cold wood stove (I hadn't started a fire yet) and opened up each other's gifts.

Hotness got: a pair of 'Heelys', new undies, and lots of assorted stocking stuffers (courtesy of Santa).
I got: lots of new cooking accoutrements (i.e. spatulas, hot pads, etc...), a bunch of organic chocolate bars, and a cool new book by Steve Martin.
The cat got: a new food dish that says "I Love My Cat" in three different languages, and a new catnip toy.
Here she is helping keep the wrapping paper under control:


Then we took showers and got ready to head out and visit our friends, Dug & Debbie and Natalie.
Santa had stopped by our house and dropped off some presents that didn't quite fit under their tree, so we needed to deliver them for him.
Among them was a stuffed "Curious George" doll and a couple of CG books for the little Pook.
(Needless to say, Santa knows what she likes and they were a definite hit)

After a brief visit with them, we were on the road again to visit my aunt and have Christmas dinner with her.

It was a very nice evening, albeit very short (since Hotness had to work the next day).
We had turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing and rolls for the main course, as well as lots of yummy nibbles for before and after dinner.
We got my aunt a new Fairie figurine for her collection and I got a new cornbread recipe cookbook and some ice cream bowls for the two of us.

That was pretty much our entire day. Real quiet and easy-going.
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The next day Hotness had to work, but I had that day off.
I got up and out of the house to hit some of the after-Christmas sales at the mall.
I go for a few specific things each year:
Smoked salmon, Hickory Farms, and Christmas cards.

The smoked salmon I get just to have on hand. Sometimes I toss it in with some pasta, other times I give to friends as a gift (for like a house-warming), or I use it as an appetizer at a get-together.
The Hickory Farms stuff is mostly my post-Christmas treat to co-workers.
I make cookies as my 'gift' to them the day or two before Christmas, and then the day after we get back I bring in a tray of summer sausage, smoked salmon, assorted cheeses, and crackers to snack on all day.
The Christmas cards are special cards from the Museum of Modern Art collection.
They always have really cool, funky cards and I like to send them to the kids on my Christmas card list. So when they drop the price to half-off, I snag them up with a quickness!

Later that same day, I went to my friend Liz's place and hung out there for a while.
I helped her pimp-out her MySpace page and we ate some leftover turkey soup she had made.
Since don't work together anymore, it's nice when we can spend some free time to catch-up with each other.
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Thursday and Friday were regular work days, but with most of the customers on Holiday vacation still, it was pretty quiet.
I suspect the next week will be hectic as they all get back to work and send all the stuff that piled-up on theirs desks while they were gone. Oh joy.

So, that was our Christmas.
Nice, quiet, and pretty stress-free.
I hope you had the same.