Today was the big day. I was planning on getting up around 8am (or whenever Jake happened to get up), but I awoke at 5:30am and could not fall back asleep. I tossed and turned for a while before I decided to get up and get to work. I went to the kitchen, cleaned it and started to work on Christmas dinner. After a little while, Jake poked his head out of the hallway and I told him that Santa didn’t come. He yelled, “Get to bed!” as he thought it was still night time. I told him that it was actually the morning and to go wake up his dad so we could open gifts.
Jake had just about as much fun opening his gifts this morning as he did last night. After that he went to work on his new toys (that kept him busy for much of the day) and I went to work on dinner. Cooking Christmas dinner was definitely less work than Thanksgiving dinner, but still a decent amount of work. My parents, grandmother, and brother joined us for dinner.
On the menu: shrimp cocktail, chicken soup with pasta cheese squares (both homemade and done ahead of time), leg of lamb, turkey breast (I had to do this on the grill because there wasn’t room in my oven for both the lamb and the turkey), mashed potato gratin, baked yams and potatoes (for the non-gratin eaters), lemon-garlic broccoli, oven roasted asparagus, dinner rolls, and salad (the last two provided by my mom).
Dinner was pretty good if I do say so myself. After we ate, we opened gifts (again). Then we sat around and talked for a bit before having dessert. A short while later, everyone left. Brian and I got the kitchen back in order and then Brian and Jake played with the pirate ships Jake got for Christmas while I arranged my jewelry in the new jewelry box I received today. When the guys were done playing pirate, they assembled the air hockey table and we all played a few rounds. I am the undisputed champion. I kicked both their asses. Numerous times. It was a lot of fun.