Christmas Eve we had Daniel and Emily over; Emily's family typically spends hours making spaghetti and meatballs. I gave over the kitchen to her and she went to work and made the best spaghetti and meatballs I've ever had. I made some roasted brussel sprouts with shallots and garlic, green salad, and a flourless chocolate cake as well as a ginger-pear punch. It was a delicious Christmas dinner and the chocolate cake even turned out well! Also, bonus, Mal loved the brussel sprouts and asked for seconds.
Afterward we all watched A Christmas Carol together. Normally we would have hot chocolate during this, but we were all quite stuffed from our dinner and the chocolate cake so skipped that this year. Everyone headed out/off to bed and Ryan and I stayed up to prep for Christmas Day.
We started with the boys hanging out in our room while Ryan and I got ready, then stockings and our traditional breakfast. Then regular present-opening. Mal got a kindle, Gareth got Mario Maker 2.
At our friends' white elephant party, Mal had grabbed a bow, stuck it on himself and declared, "I'm a present for today!". He repeated this with three bows Christmas morning and curled up in a ball on the floor and made me pick him up to "open" him.
Then he made a hat out of the top of Ryan's present packaging.
I was pretty proud of my gift for Ryan. Managed to stump him when he was opening it. After he got the wrapping off, he saw it had been shipped from England, which only stumped him more. When he was a kid, they'd had the vinyl album for Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds musical (Ryan will play this sometimes for us all; I rather enjoy it). He would spend a good chunk of time staring at the album art, particularly the pieces by Geoff Taylor.
He'd pulled these images up online a couple times in the past year. I decided to see if I could find any of the artwork. Turns out it's pretty hard to find, but I found reference to a limited edition run of prints from several years back. Found the artist's website and they were on there, but with no price information or any indication if any were left. So I emailed the artist and there were some left, so I ordered a set from him. I debated getting them framed before gifting them to Ryan, but realized they wouldn't be ready before Christmas, so we'll take them to the framer sometime this next week.
We also received a delightful book to add to our "children's" book collection. Mal, who won't watch Dr. Who because it's too scary and who claimed to have difficulty sleeping after watching A Christmas Carol, loves these sorts of books. We all got a good laugh out of the first story about a malicious playground.
Emily and Daniel came over in the afternoon and we made some GF sugar cookies, enjoyed various family video chats, and just generally enjoyed one another's company. Merry Christmas!
2 comments:
Sounds like a wonderful couple of days! Merry Christmas, Erin and family!
I remember those pictures!! As a child, I thought that one with red goo was of a sea of blood, which I found morbidly fascinating. There was another picture with the long-legged alien ships. I remember the creepy music a little, but I really didn't understand the story behind it all. I love that you went to such lengths for a gift for Ryan. :)
Sounds like a fun Christmas!
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