Merry Christmas

So, as I should have expected I'm awake at an insane hour this morning. I woke up at 3:15 and wasn't able to get back to sleep. So, here I sit with a cup of sleepytime tea, waiting to either start feeling tired again or for my mum (who is on Toronto time and also gets up early in the morning) to wake up and keep me company.

At least this gave me a chance to get all the gifts out of the cardboard boxes and big shopping bags we've been storing them in, and arrange them nicely around the tree. I discovered that Kira, our cat, couldn't wait for everyone to wake up, and managed to somehow tear open a couple of gifts from one of the boxes. Luckily one of them is still wrapped enough for concealment, and the other one is to be sent home with my mum for someone else, so I can re-wrap it. There's quite a haul this year since we didn't give the kids their gifts on Solstice like we usually do, and aren't travelling to visit family later today. It looks like a ridiculous amount of stuff for just five people.

Today's plan: open gifts as slowly as possible (note: watch Calum like a hawk so he doesn't open gifts for other people). Eat yummy breakfast Jeff is planning to cook. Figure out a time for our big dinner and then start cooking. The menu is a vegetable strudel with mashed potatoes and mushroom gravy, roasted root vegetables, brussels sprouts, another side dish I can't remember (?!) and for dessert, Xmas pudding, mincemeat tarts and trifle. After eating all this, we'll sit back and digest while the kids hopefully play nicely together with their new stuff. (hah)

We're actually lucky we can add those tarts to the list above because I somehow managed to let a dozen of them slide right off the baking tray as I was removing them from the oven. They ended up in the bottom of the oven, some of them right up against the hot coils. ooops.

Well, I'm off to bed to try and get a bit more rest... Merry Christmas everyone!