Monday, December 24, 2012

Christmas Eve surprises

Christmas Eve was full of surprises this year. The day started off fairly stress free. I had all of my shopping and wrapping done so today only required me to complete a couple of cards and bake one last batch of gingerbread men. William insisted that we need a Santa shaped cookie to leave Santa to eat when he visits so I made a couple (see below). 
 The evening was spent, as usual, at Margaret's parents' house. They celebrate in the German tradition of having the big meal on Christmas Eve and then opening gifts before bed. The first item to be opened, during the break between the goose and the strudel, was a smallish set of Star Wars Lego from Margaret's cousin Allan for William. He was building away for a lot longer than I though he needed. When I checked on him, it ends up that the box had a packaging error I've never seen before. He got two entire sets within the same box, down to two sets of instructions. Great deal, especially in that it was mainly a figure set with two storm troopers and two rebels.
Gertrud gave George a rather nice aerial photo of the farm. It was taken by a team from Quebec who flew around shooting farmstead images on spec then selling them. She arranged some sort of trade for the photo rather than straight up cash. It's a pretty awesome gift and George seemed very pleased. 
 Margaret got coffee. And gin.
 William and I opened a pickle for the tree. It is supposed to be a mystery where the pickle is hanging on a tree and I rarely find them. I'm studying this one so that I at least know what it is supposed to look like.
When we got home, the cookie had been partially eaten (Santa rarely has time to finish it) and the brown cow (we were out of rum and egg nog so replaced it with Kahlua and milk) was entirely consumed. There is a large mysterious gift in the middle of the living room which will have to wait until morning. 

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