Season of Yule

The Christmas season is one of my favorite times of year - and not only because of the month-long break from my horrifyingly busy schoolyear (thought that is a definite plus). No, I love the glow that comes with it and I don't even mind the commercial-corruption of the holiday so much. (Except for the continuous marring of Christmas songs by new artists, I hate those.)

So, yesterday was fun. We all woke up at a late-ish time (which was cool and new, it's the first time in years I haven't had to get up at 6am to stuff the turkey and put it in the oven), ate cinnamon bread for breakfast with some of Sierra's new "Dead-Man's Reach" coffee (SOO good), and checked out our Christmas stockings. Then we tackled the tree, which was - as usual - very hectic and covered the living room in paper and wrapping for a good hour or so.

Then Momma and I started in on the turkey, so we would have it ready for supper - Aunt Anne and all the rest were coming for supper, plus an exchange student from India they offered to entertain for the day, plus Sierra and Justin (who had already had Christmas at the Hughes', and we were feeling the slight pressure of having thirteen people over for dinner.

Did some last finishing touches on the house - and let me tell you, I went through some interesting convulsions trying to get thirteen chairs at the dining room table. That room is simply not big enough for thirteen people. But the meal went well, especially considering that we experienced a close-shave with Aunt Anne's cooking - she invited us over and we had to be very creative with our excuses. Aunt Anne is not the BEST of cooks, and there have been times in the past where they have not cooked their turkey thoroughly - resulting in food poisoning. We really didn't feel quite in the mood to carry a whole plastic-wrapped Christmas dinner over to Lewisburg, so we invited them over instead.

Anyway, we had a very full - noisy, too - house last night until far too late, then we had a peaceful rest of the evening to ourselves. Christmas was indeed satisfactory.