Ok, so maybe I will post on Christmas Day.

Today was great! Candice and I got up early to open presents and have a big breakfast. By coincidence Nyxie and I both got each other iPods — a Shuffle for me and a Nano for her. I have simple play-and-forget for those occasional times I want music on the go, and she’s got portable music instead of a car stereo, so it works out quite well for both of us! She also got me some Aveda shaving stuff and a seriously disturbing amount of candy in my stocking. Oh, and a motorcycle (1/32 scale!).

After a big breakfast of fried eggs, hash browns, fauxcisses and, uh, toasted Wonder bread, we got dressed and headed over to Mom’s to open our presents there, give them theirs, and have Christmas dinner. Mom’s amassed a lot of Christmas decorations over the years, and as long as I can remember there’s been a little knitted Santa doll that was given to her by my grandmother, and which was given to her by one of her grade-school students, sitting on a branch of the tree. This year, for some reason, she decided to hang him from a lamp, to disturbing effect:

“Mom, is that a crucified Santa?” It wasn’t intentional, at least. I really don’t know the symbolism of the wolf. She also has an animatronic reindeer in the yard and a fiber-optic lighted Christmas tree in the living room! All night we were going “wom wom wom!” watching the colours change on the tree.

Mom spoiled us: I got a set of Henckels knives, tools for the bike and a toolbox, a crosscut paper and CD shredder, and a sampler of various ports. Dinner was yummy and huge. Mom likes having a chance to cook a bit fancy and vegetarian-friendly, and we started with a pear-walnut-feta baby green salad with a balsamic dressing, and then a Christmas dinner of turkey for the omnis, leek and potato fagotti, stuffing, asparagus with parmesan, scalloped potatoes, and roast acorn squash, and a cranberry-almond tart for dessert. I am about to explode.

Heading out to Belleville first thing tomorrow for boxing day with Dad and Golda and the kids, so I get to stuff myself with another Christmas dinner tomorrow night. I better get some sleep.