Yesterday was Christmas with my (de facto) in laws. BF’s brothers were both in (from DC and CO), so his parents came over from VT, and we had a feast last night. I’m still full. There was absolutely more seafood than you could shake a stick at (for the brother in CO, who likes to indulge when he can get it fresh), tons of really good munchies (the gourmet cheese!), and a chocolate cake with death in its name. Have I mentioned I’m still full?
The best gift I received last night was yaktraks and a safety light from BF’s younger brother (BF got a matching set). I’ve been wanting a set of those for years. My exercise has been pretty much cut to nil will all the snow we’ve gotten so far this month (not to mention the complete lack of daylight by the time I get home from work), so this will hopefully be a good step to get me back out at least a little bit. (I still have to be careful when it gets down in to the 20s or below, because my asthma kicks in pretty readily at that point. Ah, the joys of winter living!)
I also have decided I need to cultivate a better blazer collection. My MIL gave me a really cool Celtic-styled pin from a collection I discovered the last time we drove to visit them in VT. She’s really good at picking out neat pins, and I have almost nowhere to wear them. I so need more good, fitted jackets.
I have tomorrow off (courtesy of my company, hurray free vacation!), so I’m planning on making a Cranberry Gingerbread cake for dinner with my family on Christmas. I’d also like to make some cookies, with hopefully enough to give to our neighbors downstairs (because Dave is awesome and shoveled out from the last storm before we were home from work), and for friends we plan to visit Christmas afternoon. I’m not quite sure what I want to make yet. I usually make triple chocolate-cherry cookies and gingerbread brownies, but neither recipe tends not to make a very big batch for the amount of time involved, and I’d rather get more bang for my limited afternoon cooking time. So we’ll see. I’ll have to make sure I decide on that tonight.