Post-Christmas Happenings.

In the days following Christmas not much of interest was done on my part. Me and The Debbies did some shopping and I bought a new skirt and jumper and socks. I'm planning on wearing the skirt tonight (New Years Eve) so photos'll probably follow soon. Assuming I don't look crap.

Debbie and Greg were taking part in an art show were they paid $10 for a 12" wooden canvas/box thing and they decorated them how they liked. Last night was the exhibition. All the boxes were hung up and if you liked one you could buy it for $100 and $50 went to the artist and $50 went to charity. I had work yesterday til 5pm and originally I only thought it was til 3 but it was ok because I got a free slice of pie and a free bag of tea and a free blueberry scone. Good times. Debbie and Debi met me after I'd finished and we went to the Granville Island Public Market for some small eats then went to the art show thing. We hung around for a while for a couple glasses of free wine then got bored and went to Backstage for a pint. I had a pint of Grasshopper and it was delicious.

We then went back to the art show to see if Debbie or Greg's boxes had been sold then we had some pizza at Boston Pizza.

This is really badly written blog because I can't really be bothered to be eloquent but once I've done something more exciting I'll get my write on.

Here's some photos...

A fancy hot chocolate I drank. It was delicious.

Debbie's box.

Greg's art

Someone else's art which I like

I really liked the panda

It's New Years Eve tonight and we have no idea what we're going to do. New Year's always such a hassle because no one ever really wants to go out that much but feel they have to because it's New Years. Plus everywhere's so expensive and people always want to go to different places. Not looking forward to it so much. Would like to stay in and nap.

Ah well, we're see what it's like and I'll let you know....

My First Christmas (away from home)

The festive preparations began in earnest on Christmas Eve as we trudged through a foot of snow with 15 empty beer bottles each to take for recycling at B.C. Liquor. Of course we also picked up some full bottles from that particular store. Then we headed to Safeway, prepared to fight for the last chicken/sprout/parsnip etc. We did manage to get the last chicken without resorting to violence but there was no sprouts left (shame) and no parsnips at all so our Christmas feast was not all it could have been. We gathered our haul and left Safeways for the dangerous journey back $140 lighter than when we had arrived. Still, who can put a price on Christmas. When we arrived home Greg had to leave again because he hadn't bought his beer so he had a second journey while me and Debbie heated up and put our foods away.
In the evening, Debi Jack arrived so we had baked potatoes for dinner and watched Debbie's present pile expand. Then we went to bed for the last sleep before Christmas.
When we awoke (bight and early) it was Christmas!!! We got up at 9am and opened all our presents! I think I'll pause here for a photographic interlude to break up the text...

Our collection of Festive Cheers

Our festive floor

Our pretty Christmas Eve living room

The Debbies all excited about Christmas

All of the presents

Debbie dishing out our presents

All my presents when I took the paper off

Debbie and Debi and the mess of Christmas

Greg with his snowglobe and Nerds

The aftermath

That's enough for you for the time being. Don't want you getting over excited now.

After showering, and before we did anything else, we felt it was necessary to multiply our festive cheer so we mulled some more wine and got a little merry with that. Turns out if you want to have nice mulled wine, you're best adding some honey.

Once our vision had been impared slightly Debbie and Debi got started on their starter; sweet potato and coconut soup (Debbie) and cheese and onion scones (Debi). It was pretty fantastic and exactly the right amount to keep the hunger at bay, as we had no idea when we'd be eating the main meal (The Schedule had gone out the window hours ago).

Since it had been snowing a lot recently we had already decided that snowmen must be built and we slotted that in between the starter and the undertaking of the main event. I didn't bring my ski gloves because I'm an idiot and I had to retire indoors pretty quickly because my hands were all red and sore and freezing. Around 4 we started preparing the chickens and potatoes and all the rest of the food we'd bought. I didn't think it'd take two solid hours in the kitchen but it turns out Christmas dinner's a lot of work! Anyway, 2 hours, multiple smoke alarms and a tiny fire later it was ready to be eaten. I was pretty proud of myself. The menu consisted of a chicken with butter, garlic and parsley under it's skin and an onion inside it, roast potatoes, mashed potatoes, roasted sweet potatoes, carrots and red onions, bacon curls/pigs in blankets, bread sauce (which I made from scratch), pork, chesnut an onion stuffing, cabbage, cranberry sauce and gravy. There was a lot of food and I really should have stopped eating a long time before I did. Thoroughly enjoyed myself though.

We had a short break before Greg cooked his apple pie and then tucked into some of that which was also good.

After much groaning and stomach expansion we eventually perked up a bit and began playing some board games and drinking games.

All in all I had an excellent day and I hope everyone else had fun too.

I'm getting hassled to get dressed and go shopping now so I should go. Hope everyone had a great Christmas!

Mulled wine

Sweet potato and coconut soup

Cheese and onion scones

The First Course

Our snowman

Me and the snowman

Debbie and the snowman

Debi and the snowman

Me balling up some stuffing

Pigs in blankets (there's only two because Greg used all the rest of the sausages for stuffing) and roasting veg

Getting crowded

Basting the chicken

Tending to the foods

The End Product

Tucking in

Debbie seems to be enjoying herself

Yum

Getting full?

Put a fork in me

Clean plates

Digestion

Pie time

Snow Days.

The past few days we've had loads of snow. On Wednesday 20cm fell and now there's at least a foot of snow to walk through if you wanna get the bus anywhere. It's pretty treacherous! Apparently this is the whitest Christmas for years in Vancouver. The last officially white Christmas was in 1998. And we were told it never snowed in the city...

Anyway, I'll start at the beginning. On Tuesday I bought some mulling spices from my work and some wine and we attempted making some mulled wine on Tuesday night.

Everything you need to mull yourself festive

The mulling process

Debbie mulling

Debbie checking the mulling had been carried out correctly (this is traditionally done with a gingerbread bear)

Me double-checking

Our festive living room

Then on Wednesday me and Debbie went for an adventure in the snow.

A depth scale with my feet

I'm so happy with the snow

Me taking a picture of Debbie taking a picture in the snow

Me running in the snow (I think I'm part-husky)

Debbie in the snow


Debbie (for sale) in our snowy street

Tiny Debbie being excited from a distance

Everything loses it's shape in the snow

A weird coloured thing depot near our house

Icicles!

The tiny path we had to walk along through the snow

My first Canadian McDonalds (was delicious)

A tree I made from wire on my day off

Granville Street in the snow

So that's how snowy it is! I was meant to work on Monday but I got a call just when I was on the bus saying I didn't need to go in and that I was meant to stay inside and warm but since I was already outside and cold I went downtown to get some final things for Christmas. Then the Rimmer's family member Dolphin came and met me and we went to dinner at his Grans. It was his dad's birthday so I pretty much crashed a family event and I'm not sure how many people were expecting me because I got asked how I knew Dolphin (kinda sounded like they thought I was his new girlfriend or something) but I had an awesome meal and was invited for Christmas if my plans (of cooking and eating and drinking lots) fell through. After that Dolphin and I went to Granville Island to an open mic night at Backstage. Some dude was playing some kinda crazy fingering guitar. Was pretty impressive. Then I went home and had work today. I'm quite excited to be off work for a week! Since I got a job it seems I have so much stuff to do in such a little time. I think the fact that it takes upto an hour to get there totally makes a difference. It's gonna be good to clear the backlog of stuff I want to do and get doing some fun stuff again! I wanna go to Main Street and look at all the cool shops Debbie keeps talking about.

Anyway, think that's pretty much it. Tomorrow we're going to go and buy all the rest of the food for Thursday and then I'm gonna stay inside for as long as possible!