very merry

The above is but a fraction of the deliciousness that was had at our fourth annual Christmas Brunch today.  It's a meat pie, made not with a traditional French Canadian recipe but with my mother's wonderfully updated approach: ground pork, sour cream, and rosemary, baked in a pie crust.

Not pictured, but equally yummy, my mother also made a spinach quiche.  There was chowder and smoked salmon and bagels and goat's milk cheese with cranberries in it.  There were homemade cinnamon rolls and gingerbread and fruit salad. We sipped mimosas and homebrew and the bourbon-y eggnog that The Awesome Husband made from scratch.  (I don't think anyone sipped all three of those things, though.)

Fourteen people, one cat, and one dog gathered in our kitchen and living room to enjoy all that great food and drink.  Our house isn't spacious, so it was definitely cozy.  And definitely awesome.

If only we had a very small Santa hat...

Cecil knows where it's at.

And by "it," I mean "Christmas spirit."  Or "sun streaming in the picture window."  One of the two.

Every time he stretches or shifts around to get comfy, there's a great deal of rustling from the wrapping paper on the gifts he's nestled in.  It's pretty cute.

May you all have a puppy curled up under your tree (if you celebrate this time of year in the manner of decorating trees) today, or your equivalent of happiness.

Hello, Christmas!

I am officially on holiday weekend and free from work until Tuesday. Hurrah!

It feels like I might be the only blogger who'll possibly be posting *more* over the holiday weekend than normal. (Note: I make no promises.)  I'm reading a lot of "I'm off for the holidays; see you in 2012"posts, and while I get where those folks are coming from, my perspective is a bit different.

Blogging for me is 100%, without a doubt, purely a hobby for me.  I don't make any money from it, I don't set blogging requirements or schedules for myself, and I don't spend a tremendous amount of time on most posts (I'm sure many of you have already figured that out).  If I have something to say, I say it.  It's great when folks choose to read, but if nobody does, there's no tangible consequence.

I intend to fill my holiday weekend with things I find fun, and a blog post is likely to be on the list.  Although, if I end up without enough time to post, at least it'll be because I'm busy doing fun holiday things, rather than working.

Cheers!

gift exchange, interwebz style

How fabulous is the internet? I mean, really, the amount of available information and opinions and perspectives is kind of amazing. You can stay in contact with friends who've moved to a far-flung time zone or have conversations with people you've never met. If you're SUPER lucky, you might also get to participate in a gift exchange with a group of awesome peeps from around the world who you know through Twitter and their respective blogs.

And yes, you guessed it, I'm super lucky.

So I knit up these cozies for the lovely Zan using some of the yarn that I bought in Iceland last year. I have a sweater knit from the same yarn, and it's toasty, lemme tell ya. Hopefully the same is true when it's in hat and mitten form.

Annnnnd, what I didn't realize while I was knittin' along was that I'd been assigned as a giftee to dday (of Tumbledown Mountain fame. where "fame" is used loosely.) First I got a card from her indicating that my gift was en route and would arrive separately due to shipping constraints. Curiouser and curiouser I was, until this awesomeness (also pictured above) arrived in my mailbox:

How rad is that?! Not only does it have a picture of a craftosaurus on it -- and what else would a craftosaurus look like? -- it also excels at holding spiked, mulled hot cider. In case you were wondering.

It isn't piping season.

Today is The Awesome Husband's birthday (hooray! three cheers! confetti and noisemakers!), and this is his cake.  Per his request, it's a banana cake with chocolate frosting.

You'll note that I took the swirled-with-the-back-of-a-spoon approach to the frosting.  I have the knowledge and supplies to do decorative piped frosting around the edges, but I simply didn't have TIME for that.  Christmas card, shopping, and decorating season isn't piping season.  I-have-a-cold season isn't really piping season either.

I'll just have to hold out hope that it's really, really delicious.

made for each other

The Awesome Husband: *carrying a piece of paper* Hey, can you help me with something?

Me: Sure.

The Awesome Husband: This form needs a witness signature below where I signed.

Me: Ok, but you have to ask the right way...

The Awesome Husband: *puzzlement, followed by a flash of recognition and a big grin*

...Can I get a witness?

The first step is buying the tree.

It's a little strange selecting and cutting down a Christmas tree when there's no snow on the ground. Mind you, I'm LOVING the absence of slippery ice. I'm not complaining.

Anyway, this is where we were today, at a tree farm.  Well, this is where we were for a fraction of the day. Today was actually quite busy, but we managed to fit buying a Christmas tree into the mix.

We'll decorate it later.

Ok. The Festive has arrived.

Some of us at work are giving Secret Santa gifts this week.  I found this on my desk when I arrived in the morning.  That's an instant good mood right there, I tell ya.

Plus, my giftee positively squealed with delight when she saw what I'd left for her.

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!

almost festive

Wow. So I've noticed over the past couple weeks just how much the summer's harvests and garden pictures had to do with keeping this blog remotely interesting.  Apparently I'm quite boring (or, I suppose one could say, especially boring) in the fall. 

There are no fresh tomatoes or raspberries to use up this week, and no cheerful flowers to show you.  On the other hand, I'm starting to get more into the holiday spirit this week. I take my sweet time with these things; you can't force it. Well, you can, but in my experience that never ends well.

I've found a few gifts for people that I think will bring joy. That always helps me find The Festive.  We watched the Rudolph claymation (feltmation?) special when it was on TV. Later this week I think I'll go for broke and bake some cookies.

It might even be time for some carols. Soon.

No reason. Just because.

We didn't host or cook much for Thanksgiving this year, so we knew we'd need to do something to ensure we had on hand that very important part of the festivities: leftovers. 

Today ended up being the first available day for cooking a chicken and some side dishes, and we decided what the heck, let's use the china and glasses we got as wedding gifts. And while we're at it, let's get a little dressed up.  And drink some fancy beer.  Why not?

What are we celebrating? Just the fact that our life together is pretty damn good.