Perkins, I'm a big believer in spiced rum for hot cider. Le yum.

I'm glad it didn't stop just because I left. I want miss some crap weather too.

Okay, I essentially haven't slept since Friday morning. Lemme go give that a shot.

I had hot apple cider with red wine and it was delicious.

I hope you have a good night's sleep, ita.

Just snuck downstairs to try to get something to eat. Wanted to stick to soup but I needed to get something that didn't take much prep so I wouldn't be in the way in the kitchen. My aunt tried to give me some of her pizzele. If she'd only caught me two days ago. As it was, I remained strong. I had some kinda dry tasteless tenderloin (if people hadn't been watching me, I wouldn't have wasted the calories eating the whole thing).

Kids are screaming their heads off and running around downstairs so I beat a path upstairs again. I'm too tired to do more dress stuff right now so I think I'll watch my Mad Men DVDs and go to sleep in an hour or two.

Good Christmas with no meltdowns or fights. Really good times. We drove down in the afternoon to see GG and cousins. The 2 nine yo cousins are having a sleepover which means I am out on the couch.

I'm so glad, msbelle! You deserved it.

I wore the hat you made me last night/this morning at Juliana's, and everyone admired it very much.

That is wonderful msbelle.

The only thing missing from today was some snow. This is bizarre Colorado weather. Not that I want a blizzard or anything, but there has barely been any of the white stuff.

God, I'm exhausted. The dinner we were supposed to eat at 4:30 or so was finally served around 7 PM, because my oldest brother is an ambitious perfectionist who doesn't factor in competition for limited oven space when planning for a prime rib dinner with seven sides. Oof.

OTOH, it was all excellent, from the spinach-with-hazelnuts to the yorkshire puddings, and everyone loved my pies.

I left the rest of them watching Sherlock on tv, and came home to find my sister's dog had pooped & peed on my carpet in the living room, because the day had run so much longer than anyone expected. Bah.

Ah, well. I got a GC for a massage, two days of skiing at my favorite place, and some great little trinkets. It was a good day, and all behaved themselves. Plus, it was adorable to watch the two-year-old crawl around the floor pretending to be a cat.

But I'm happy to be home, and alone but for my dog.

Back from a lovely day with JZ's family, including all the out of town Uncles and Aunt.

It was very nice, and Matilda was in a charming, affectionate mood, crawling into many laps and loving on her family. Then skipping about Papou's house in her fancy Christmas dress, and earnestly describing events in photo albums.

Emmett was very pleased to receive more Legos, and then commandeered one of the uncles iPads and played on that very happily until dinner, at which point he consumed vast quantities of prime rib.

It was all very nice, but I'm quite tired after spending the night over at EM's house for xmas eve, and I'm a bit burned out on the social whirl. I'll be skipping the open house tomorrow.

I came out of the latest round of gift giving with tasty homemade cookies, and a new bottle of artisanal gin and fancy tonic.

So let the gin guzzling frenzy (cf. Mojo Nixon) begin. After a lot of sleeping.

Skipping (finally we have internet again! Almost a week with no access to the outside world due to all sorts of malfunctions is still only a very first world problem, but still not much fun at all) because according to the Buffista Calendar, today is one of those special triple Buffista events: it's the birthday of Jesse H, Theodosia and Rayne.

Happy birthday, Jesse! Happy birthday, Theo! Happy birthday, Rayne (and I hope you get to see the well-wishes somehow). For each one of you, lots of wishes for a great day and a wonderful year!