I'm only, oh, two weeks late.
In any case, Christmas went well. In hindsight, I chose too many dishes to make -- I started cooking around Thursday and had three hours left to go on Christmas Day, plus we had to throw out a few leftovers that didn't get finished before they went bad -- but I think it went better than last year's Christmas dinner. There was certainly more variety. One thing that surprised me, even though I picked out and read all the recipes, was how strongly flavoured, and often sweet, most of the dishes were. Lots of cinnamon, ginger, cloves, saffron, etc.
( Food photos and commentary. )
Since it took us about an hour to eat and another hour or more to clean up (my mom cleaned the kitchen and my dad did the dishes since I'd done all the cooking), we didn't open presents until 5 PM. The most common present was socks. I gave my mom socks, she gave me socks, we both gave my dad socks, etc. Yay socks! We also received quite a lot of food, some of which I used in my recipes (pears, dates, nuts, candy, etc.) and a few books. One of the books was the Star Trek Book of Opposites, a kid's book designed to teach the concept of opposites (happy and sad, hot and cold, etc.) using screencaps from The Original Series, which my mom gave to me and my dad. Some of the pictures chosen were quite clever and my dad and I tried to guess which episode each photo was from.
I was sick for New Year's, but my dad and I finished watching the third season of BBC's Merlin on Netflix. While my parents were at a neighbourhood party, I watched some of the Avengers cartoon, mostly the Thor and Loki-centric episodes. It didn't grab me initially as much as some of DC's cartoons, but I was surprised at some of what was left in from the Norse myths.
( More photos, including some from earlier last year that I never posted. )
In any case, Christmas went well. In hindsight, I chose too many dishes to make -- I started cooking around Thursday and had three hours left to go on Christmas Day, plus we had to throw out a few leftovers that didn't get finished before they went bad -- but I think it went better than last year's Christmas dinner. There was certainly more variety. One thing that surprised me, even though I picked out and read all the recipes, was how strongly flavoured, and often sweet, most of the dishes were. Lots of cinnamon, ginger, cloves, saffron, etc.
( Food photos and commentary. )
Since it took us about an hour to eat and another hour or more to clean up (my mom cleaned the kitchen and my dad did the dishes since I'd done all the cooking), we didn't open presents until 5 PM. The most common present was socks. I gave my mom socks, she gave me socks, we both gave my dad socks, etc. Yay socks! We also received quite a lot of food, some of which I used in my recipes (pears, dates, nuts, candy, etc.) and a few books. One of the books was the Star Trek Book of Opposites, a kid's book designed to teach the concept of opposites (happy and sad, hot and cold, etc.) using screencaps from The Original Series, which my mom gave to me and my dad. Some of the pictures chosen were quite clever and my dad and I tried to guess which episode each photo was from.
I was sick for New Year's, but my dad and I finished watching the third season of BBC's Merlin on Netflix. While my parents were at a neighbourhood party, I watched some of the Avengers cartoon, mostly the Thor and Loki-centric episodes. It didn't grab me initially as much as some of DC's cartoons, but I was surprised at some of what was left in from the Norse myths.
( More photos, including some from earlier last year that I never posted. )
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