The trip to my parents’ for Christmas has been deemed a success. The entire affair was very low-key, and we had a great time. I even got over my weirdness about having a man in my old bedroom. The truth is that we didn’t get to bed until almost midnight and I was too exhausted to even think about it.
We spent most of Christmas Eve at my brother’s house, where my SIL made us a really wonderful dinner. Before dessert we sat around and opened presents. The youngest member of the group was my nephew, who is 16. It was so orderly and tame as to be almost boring. It’s just not the same without a couple of overly anxious kids on the edge of popping a vein in anticipation of opening their next present.
After dinner and dessert we went back to Mom & Dad’s where we spent another couple of hours sitting around yapping. Beau Hunk seems to have been fully accepted into the clan, and he and my father have bonded very nicely over my father’s hobbies.
Sunday morning was slow and lazy, and culminated in Beau Hunk making everyone omlettes. I was in charge of making toast and juicing the mandarins from Mom’s tree in the front yard. I was also responsible for keeping Mom out of the kitchen. I had to take her by the shoulders and gently guide her out four times. She just can’t sit back and let someone serve her for a change. The rest of the morning and afternoon was spent in a haze of chit-chat. Isn’t it amazing how we can spend hours talking to somone and not say a damned thing?
We had an early dinner / late lunch. Would that be linner? Whatever you call it, it was fantastic. We had fresh dungeness crab, salad and sourdough bread. There was really no way for that to be bad. I was in charge of cleaning and cracking the crab, and impressed Mom with my ability to skillfully rip the face off our meal. I also managed to crack the legs without beating the hell out of the meat, which is more than I can usually say for the hacks at the grocery store who try to crack crab. I long ago decided to forego their services and crack my own at home.
The meal was wonderful, and was followed by chocolate silk pie for dessert. I’ve been craving chocolate pie for months, but refused to buy one to satisfy my craving. If I buy one, then I have to eat it. Eating a pie is not a good thing, so I just gave it the big pass. So I was very happy to see that pie in Mom’s fridge. Score!
After dessert we gathered up our goodies and headed for home. We even managed to get home at a decent hour and spent some time with the pets before crashing out in our own bed. It was a geat trip, we had a wonderful holiday, and we’re glad to be home.