Note: There will be a 100% Christmas-free Otterday Open Thread tomorrow. Please keep all the Christmas chat to here.
This thread is for those who celebrate Christmas and/or don’t mind chatter about it. What are you up to? How’s the menu planning going, or what did you eat? Feel like a loot report (giving and/or receiving)? Got any photos? Having a rotten day, and don’t mind chatting about it amongst the cheer? Here’s the place.
Today’s dancing baby king penguin lives at Edinburgh Zoo, and comes via Zooborns. I have the Happy Feet soundtrack playing in my head!
Categories: Life
Soggy here, innit? 
In memoriam: Diana Rigg 
Getting out the ‘yes’ 
100 books by women in 2016 
Hoyden About Town 
Merry Chrimbo, everyone!
Advantage #1 of having teen sprogs – they sleep in on Xmas morn and Mum can have the first shower!
We were woken at 5:30am but refused to get up till 7:30. The dog is currently sitting under the Christmas tree chewing on her new squeaky toy, David is building a lego pirate ship, Tom is playing a Ben Ten PS2 game and Caitlin is getting creative with her new art set. I think Adam has gone back to bed!
*waves* Morning everyone! I don’t do Christmas, so I’m going to take advantage of the quiet and read books. I’m reading Oranges are Not the Only Fruit, and also I need to make a start on The Ethical Slut for book club. And then I really want to read Justine Larbalestier’s Liar soon, because I am weird about reading books in their year of publication.
Wishing you all a merry day.
Well it is still Christmas eve here in Niagara Falls, On Canada. We have just finished decorating our gingerbread house and I have sugar rush that you would not believe. The boys are planning to go to bed early so that they can of course have me up at the crack of dawn to open presents….Lucky lucky me. Happy holidays to all of you who are celebrating
I’m getting into the day slowly, and then meeting up with my partner before we head over to a friend’s place for a big Xmas lunch. Her kids are coming down from Sydney after they finish Christmas morning with their Dad – I’m kind of looking forward to hanging with children on Christmas Day for the first time in years! Our friend is roasting a 6kg turkey with a pinenut and apricot stuffing, and we’ll probably take a dip in the pool if it’s warm enough, and have fun playing with their six-month-old dog (Hungarian Vizla and made of cute!), and have a lot of bubbly. Well, not so much bubbly for me… I’ve had a wisdom tooth infection blow up this week. Two of the fuckers are coming out after NY’s, and the antibiotics I’ve been taking for the last few days seem to have taken the edge off, but I’m still going to be chomping some codeine before eating.
I love codeine.
Book haul:
Gave daughter Wolf Hall for srs and airplane reading and Nightlight the Twilight parody as a joke, as she’s chomped her way through all that Twilight stuff.
Gave son the Book of Boosh which is a hit as he’s an obsessive fan of Boosh and, for airplane reading, the latest Ranger’s Apprentice which is a huge yawn to me, but he loves it.
Daughter gave me The Death of Bunny Munro. I’m not a big fan of the writings of Mr Cave and dear FSM in heaven, that f###n cover. Could you be any more offensive, Mr Book Design man? I’m assuming you’re a man. Still, thank you Girlchild, you dear thing.
She gave SO a cocktail making book, which is just encouraging him.
In case posting here seems unbelievably sad, I should mention that grandparents have requested Christmas activities on Boxing day instead of the 25th b/c Jewish BFFs can’t make it. I would have thought it would have been more logical just to go ahead with the Xmas stuff and have a lovely Boxing day get together the next day, but since I’m an atheist and pretty much over the Xmas thing anyway, I’m, like, “meh”.
Hope everyone else is having a great day!
Books, Jane Austen DVDs, chocolates – lovely. The girls started woke at 5.50am (or so they tell me) and started opening presents at 6am (parental order, to which they adhered – they are wonderful children), and we woke shortly after 7am. Not too bad at all.
Best of all, I am spending the day with my partner and children and my beloved parents. Two of my brothers live in Australia (Sydney and Brisbane), but the third will be here with his partner and their children for dinner.
Right… back to the meal prep. I hope you’re all having the day you wanted.
I officially transitioned over from child to Santa this year. I stuffed stockings for my mini cousins and had a blast Christmas Eve. I can’t wait until Christmas day (in the US with the rellies atm).
Happy Holidays/ Merry Christmas all!
It’s the middle of the day here, and we’re having a lovely relaxing time. No extended family today – we’ve hunkered down at home to ourselves, for the first time (YAY). Last night we had dinner, a visit from a friend, and opened one present each (for me, a ceramic pizza stone.)
The Lad woke to his stuffed stocking and a Lego kit on the end of the bed, which kept him busy so I could have a sleep in! We scoffed croissants with ham and brie, then opened the rest of the tree presents. I received a lovely king sized cream cotton blanket, a new stick blender for soaping (with a LOOOOOONG stick part, something I’ve been looking for for ages and not finding!), the new Kingsolver book (The Lacuna), and all the Vorkosigan books I haven’t got yet, so I’m feeling very lucky. We’ll scrounge up some sort of lunch soon, then cook a cranberry/macadamia turkey roll with sweet potatoes and greens for dinner. Partner has also baked and glazed a ham, so we’ll be having sandwiches for quite a while!
The Lad is enjoying his stash – mostly Lego and piles of books, a new bigger and better fishtank so his goldfish can have a friend, the game Operation, some D&D monsters and Scooby figurines, Star Wars model kits, marbles, chocolates, a DVD, a videogame, and craft bits and pieces. I buy bit by bit throughout the year, then bundle the presents into birthday and Xmas. He has no Big Present this year (it was Partner’s turn for that), so he did pretty well on the smaller stuff.
We’ll catch up with outer family at a couple of occasions through the coming week, without rushing around.
Guitar for (technically much too young for it) two-year-old is a huge hit with the recipient, if we can just keep him from trashing it by new year. Amazing the way you can tune a guitar to the internet: the wonders of a modern Christmas. Also very pleased with myself for making proper old-fashioned gingerbread piggies for all.
Best yuletide wishes to all the hoydens of the world.
Yesterday, we got up, eyes wide at the heavy rain after the 39 degree day the day before, and helped the puppies learn how to unwrap presents (not hard, they love tearing paper), so they could open nummy treats and the new ball mum and dad had got them. We were hoping it might be too tough for them, but no, said ball was punctured within 5 mins. Ah well. Better luck next time.
Croissants, a rhubarb-and-strawberry cocktail and fruit salad, then unwrapping time. I did very well this year: a mezzeluna knife, a set of wrist guards and elbow pads (in aid of my silly derby aspirations!), various pretties from sister’s Vietnam trip, a dressing gown, a gorgeous shawl with a wooden stabby thing, and some hideous gifts from the extended family (thank goodness they weren’t present to watch our faces… sigh). Then on to the preparation of food – salads for all, lamb for almost all, and eggplant gilled and filled with mozzerella, parmesan, tomato and onion and basil, for me. Then we ate. I inevitably feel full after almost nothing on Xmas day. We drank red wine while playing 500 until we all got too silly and careless to continue playing, so we took the dogs down to the dam for a wee walk in the rain.
Then we ate salad and dip and bread for a late dinner, followed by gorgeous apricot tart with homegrown apricots. And watched all the gaping holes in the plot of Terminator 4. I miss Sarah. Why did she have to go away and turn the Terminator franchise into a boys-wiv-guns affair? Hm?
My SIL and I cracked ourselves up quoting Mr Bean “have you got the turkey on?” (for non Bean tragics, Mr B is, unbeknownst to his guest, walking around with the turkey stuck on his head). So we got the turkey on eventually and my niece cooked shortbread and after beach swims and consumption of the hideous bird we made boozy custard which was also hilarious apparently although I can’t recall why. Little Creatures Pale ale probably.
After vowing to make everyone their gifts this year I ended up with two pairs of half finished socks on the needles and had to do the last minute substitution of random stuff Oh noes, luckily I had The Lives of Others and A Cock and Bull Story on DVD . Needle felted brooches and rings turned out Ok though. I scored some Haigh chocolate and Japanese tobacco box wrappers from the twenties. Yay!
With the aid of codeine, I had a lovely day. I got books, chocolates, a dragon and a promise for a weekend away with babysitting already organised.
The kids got enough sugar to get them through the school holidays, along with sufficient toys, books & clothes to get them through to next Christmas. Today they are slowly working their way through it all.
Foodage was huge as usual, and I am just munching on my first ham sandwich of the season. Despite a truly despicable December, it was a good Christmas.
Hubby and I declined all “invitations” from the family and enjoyed the only thing we really wanted for Christmas – a day at home, alone, together.
Somehow my comment got eaten… very appropriate.
I had my immediate family over for breakfast. Christmas breakfast was properly seasonal, by which I mean suitable for summer: pikelets, bacon, a big plate of fruit. I have a Quickflix subscription for those no-hands mothering moments, and Everything is Illuminated to put after Infinite Jest in my reading queue… hrm, both books suitable for sleep deprivation, right? The baby-to-be got a teeny haul too.
We had lunch with the more extended family. Our p?r?gi (making of) were totally unseasonal but were appreciated nevertheless.
(No Christmas baby for this Mary, by the way!)
Christmas sucked. Next year I’m saying home with the cats.
It certainly seems to have sucked away your gravatar wot I really liked.
(Plz give cats an ear-skritch for me)
Edit: Ooh, your gravatar is back! yay!