This is the yearly bonus open thread for Christmas chat, for Hoydens and Hoydenizens who are interested. Feel free to talk services, observances, decorations, gifts, surprises, feasting and family traditions heart-warming and otherwise. All observers of Christmas welcome if you want to chat, religious, non-religious, and observers in the sense of watching it without participating.

4 days to go! by kennymatic
Well, what did Stormtrooper Claus bring you/your family? Inquiring minds want to know.
Please confine Christmas discussion to this thread only: yesterday’s Otterday thread is a Xmas-free zone for other subjects.
Categories: fun & hobbies, Life
Hi all!!
I made the mistake of sharing some pro-muffin, anti-cupcake* views a little while before my family handed out the presents. My brother and his girlfriend gave me two vegan cookbooks – one of which is all about cupcakes! Ooops. I am going to change my bigoted ways! Butter cream & vanilla cupcakes here I come!
We were verbally abused by drunk people outside the church before midnight mass last night. The abuse centred on religion. I am atheist, but my brother and I went to support my mother (who helps distribute communion). I felt awful for my mother. Lift your game, inebriated loiterers!
*Overhyped, insubstantial ne’er-do-wells!
Have just got back from visiting old friends after the big family lunch – very pleasant to catch up after a hiatus of a few years.
My brother’s cat has her hind leg stuck out in front of my laptop screen while she is grooming herself, I don’t think approves of newfangled technology occupying lap space which could be put to better feline usage.
Just spent a 6 hours with my Mum, her husband, and my brother and sister-in-law and their three kids and our two. Their three, all boys, are very active and I am exhausted and glad that my two go at a slightly slower pace. It was lovely though.
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but with custard.
I think I have perhaps died of pudding overdose.
@Perla – Muffin solidarity! *raises fist* Was it Vegan Cupcakes Take Over The World that you received? I have that one. Keep meaning to make the fancy ones, but never quite get around to it.
I have eated all the ham and started on the trifle.
Wished some strangers Merry Christmas at the cemetary this morning while putting home grown roses on my Dad’s grave and those of my grandparents. The roses really have outdone themselves in blooms this year and there were many lovely ones to choose from. Then drove past the farmhouse I grew up in and discovered all the lovely old Sugar Gums had died from old age/drought/stress and was saddened to think that my fantasy of going to sleep, once more, hearing the wind in the trees – like a roaring crowd – would *really really* never come true now. I hope someone, some day, replants beautiful eucalypts were they were. I don’t know exactly what they were but they were over 100foot high and so old they didn’t drop seed anymore. Maybe one day I will try and find out.
@The Amazing Kim: Yup, that’s the one. I’m looking forward to new kitchen challenges. The green tea cupcakes in VCTOtW sound yummy!
A lumix camera, I should finally have good quality photos on my blog, or at least, I and not my technology will be to blame if not. Merry Christmas all, hope it was fun and or bearable.