Christmas Eve
I had the living room decorated and ready by Christmas Eve, complete with a pyramid-shaped advent calender and the St. Nicholas that you gave to Mom.
Among the ornaments on the tree were the angels that Mom remembers from her early Christmases.
As well as all of the ornaments that were "mine" growing up, such as those that Kim used to make for each of us every year.
Mom's stocking was there too, ready for filling.
The holiday festivities began with Mom and I meeting up the afternoon of Christmas Eve to pick up the food for the next two days. We felt like traditional Europeans as we went to get the venison at the specialty shop (the same one frequented by Julia Child when she lived in Cambridge), and then to the cheese shop for something to augment the fondue mix.
After food shopping we went to a candlelight yoga class before returning to my place to heat up the fondue.
We enjoyed it so much that we were too full for the chocolate fondue, which we postponed until the next day.
Of course, the night wouldn't have been complete without a lively reading of "'Twas the Night Before Christmas," a family tradition.
Christmas Day
Ben stayed in my living room for the night, so we were both ready when Dad came at 10am the next morning. We had quite the mountain of gifts to get through, so we got right to it.
We went around clockwise, beginning with presents from Dad to us and from us to Dad.
Ben got his first fancy writing pen.
Courtney received a screwdriver set petite enough to accompany her if she is in the Peace Corps.
Meanwhile, when Dad had put together a request list on Amazon's website (where you can list things you might want for others to see), Ben and I had both rushed to get him his helicopter--before he had a chance to figure out which one to keep on the list! Fortunately, returns are easy, so he got to pick his favorite.
We waited until Mom arrived at about noon to open our stockings and exchange presents between siblings. In our stockings were sweet clementines, along with the personalized ornaments that you sent!
I hear that they were your first online purchase, which allowed you to tailor them to our interests.
I love having ornaments that commemorate different occasions, as I think of the memories each year when I put them on the tree.
This is also when we opened the larger of your two lovely packages. We didn't initially realize that the smaller package contained the bookmarks for Karen, but we figured this out just after Dad left and so sent it home still wrapped with Courtney.
Dad left at about 1pm, and we opened presents back and forth with Mom. The piano then called for us to carol for you!
Finally, it was time for dinner. I set the table in Christmas colors, of course, and the day before I had had a chance to purchase flowers from a local flower shop a block down the street. They carry a limited variety but of very high quality; their flowers often last two weeks or more.
I had never cooked venison before, and it was surprisingly difficult to find a consensus online about how long to leave it in. Fortunately, it turned out to be very resiliant; we tried two different cooking methods (on the two different sections of meat), and both turned out very well! We covered the venison in a blackberry sage sauce and served it with leeks and mushrooms sauteed in red wine, warm goat cheese and apple spinach salad, and wild rice.
We thoroughly enjoyed it!
After dinner we had the chocolate fondue, along with many sweet and savory dipping options. We also enjoyed the amazing baklava that Ben had brought (though we had to be careful that Mom didn't abscond with all of it!).
By this time it was late and the hour was near for everyone to return home to their beds, but we certainly had a Merry Christmas.
Post-Christmas
Though we didn't exactly have a white Christmas (only a little snow left from several days before), we certainly had a white day after Christmas--a near-blizzard hit! This is the view from my porch two days after Christmas:
I also set up my new piano bench from Mom, which suits the piano perfectly.
Sitting there, I could play the Chopin Prelude that I learned from your music (just click on the "play" icon in the image to hear it; you may need to turn the volume up fairly loud).
