~Nadolig Llawen~

We're clinging onto the last few hours of Christmas day here. Can you believe I have to work tomorrow? After a couple glasses of Fat Cat Pinot Noir, and a day's worth of activity, I am quite lucky to be typing the correct letters. Karen, my sister-in-law, dreamily informed us this afternoon that she had drank 5 glasses of wine and wanted us to stay longer because she felt like chatting a lot. Dale, our illustrious brother-in-law, prophetically chose his gift this year for her -- an Alcoholics Anonymous handbook that he found on a bus. He seems to think I need a little religion in my life, for he presented me with a Quran. Let's not forget the accusation that I am a member of Al Qaeda and have infiltrated the family (the only possible explanation for why I hooked up with his brother). Maybe it has something to do with my husband's spontaneous outbursts about the government and the possibility of mandatory gold recalls at set prices. Just a thought. So what did the "gold hoarder" receive for Christmas from his brother? A "bling watch" the size of a wall clock and studded with rhinestones. We bought him a very special soap, colour-coded and labelled for anatomical use on either side, to remove those public transport pathogens. Karen, our newly proclaimed AA kin, had a shirt made for Dale with the monogram "FOB" -- Found on Bus.

Although it would have been nice to stay a bit and let someone else do the cooking for once, Don's son was meeting us back at the house after he had Christmas lunch at his mother's house. However, we didn't quite make it out before Karen raged a jihad on my still-sensitive teeth with a rock hard cookie. It looked delicious, the cookies weren't burned, but they were devoid of any moisture (think she lost track of the time between glasses of wine). Don gently steered me away from a peanut blossom, but I thought a chocolate chip cookie would be safe. Afterwards, I was certain I had lost a filling or rammed my teeth into the roots. Thankfully, we have a tube of sensodyne-type gel in the medicine cabinet.

Christmas back at our house was a bit more tame. Don and I have a tradition that we open one gift an hour each. I put together a heavy Christmas morning breakfast of scrambled eggs, sausage, and orange poppy seed muffins (in snowmen, Santa, and tree shapes) topped with citrus preserves. The stockings were carted to the kitchen table as a teaser to the gifts to come, Don's stuffed with chocolate and techy accessories. I'm writing this post from one of my gifts -- a sleek new Medion Akoya laptop. As an extra surprise, Don had already customised it, replacing Windows with Linux and adjusting the settings to connect to the LAN. All I have to do is install the drivers for the Nvidia GeForce card and the fingerprint reader.

While the laptop was the big gift, Don had several other good surprises in store. He upgraded my knife block with a new Chicago Cutlery carbon steel 18-piece set, which I have already put to good use. Other goodies include an incredibly soft and cuddly red terry cloth robe, slipper boots for keeping warm inside, and a self-charging smoke alarm and portable alarms for doors and windows for my safety.

I did a little splurging on Don as well... He's been drooling over digital camcorders for a while, so Santa brought him a 9.1 mp Sanyo Xacti CG9 pocket-size digital camcorder. It's gorgeous...the video is surprisingly good and it adjusts well to changes in lighting and focus. Don had been asking for an MP3 player; something he could download talk radio shows and europop to for listening at work or whilst mowing the lawn. A Sandisk Sansa e250 did the trick. Nothing too fancy, but enough options to allow it to expand as Don finds more uses for it. Also tucked under the tree from Santa's bag were the DVD and CD for Naqoyqatsi, the third and final film of the Qatsi documentary trilogy (he already had the other two); a Nissan Thermos travel mug for his morning coffee; and the art deco World's Fair poster he chose online.

Dinner turned out fantastic, even though the menfolk filled up on starters. When we returned from Duane and Karen's house, Don III was already waiting at the house. I had baked the mincemeat tarts before we left, requiring only that they be placed on a plate before I headed back to the kitchen to prepare the baked brie. For the brie, I simply sliced off the top of the rind, then scooped on brown sugar-caramelized onions, rum-soaked cranberries, and a little orange zest. Ten minutes later, I called the men to the table for the brie (with orders to bring in the mincemeat tarts), which I served with a French bread wreath looking just like this one: http://daytonsbread.blogspot.com/2008/12/wreath-of-european-peasant-bread.html Very easy to make, choose your favourite bread recipe and just adjust the shape. For dinner, I basted a brown sugar-cured ham with cherry preserves and Kilbeggan Irish whiskey. Served alongside were apples baked in a treacle and hard cider syrup, creamed spinach, and a Wenslydale cheese tart with Pinot Noir cranberry sauce. Recipes and pictures coming tomorrow....