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And a very merry christmas to all!

We've reached that lull in the day where everyone's opened presents, had a late breakfast, and had a nap, but it's not yet time to make dinner. So my mom and sister have gone for a walk, everyone else is reading, and I am posting.

Yesterday was mostly mad shopping/cookery/present wrapping, with some delivery of resulting goodies in the afternoon. I made sugar cookies and chocolate chip cookies and pie, and my mom and I collaborated on butter tarts. Mom also made nutbread and nanaimo bars (this last from a recipe that weirdly calls them "George" - as in, we made some George yesterday. I am entertained enough by this that it may stick.) I also made gravlax to go with pebre for dinner, and it was AWESOME and will totally have to be repeated for all my fish-loving friends at some point. Hmmm, New Year's maybe? God knows there's enough pebre.

Mom and some of her band pplz were playing at a midnight mass chez the church they practice in, so I went along to listen and keep her company on the drive. Interesting experience - I've never been to midnight mass before. It was bizarrely similar to shul. The content was different, clearly, but the structure and some of the gestures large and small (prayer for the sick, prayer for the dead, ritual prayers repeated at a certain juncture, etc.) were very much the same, albeit focused around different objects (torah vs. chalice, for example). Mostly it was not to my taste. The iconoclast in me prefers synagogue on several levels (am I using this word right? I mean iconoclasm as in disdaining images), although possibly that's just a question of being more acclimatized to one than the other, and maybe mass in a different church (or with a different choir :P) would have been better. I didn't like the projection screen with words for responsive readings and carols (I know it saves paper, but ick), the red stage-lighting they had on the altar (ick), or the couple with the newborn they had dressed up as Mary and Joseph (ick). I did, however, very much like their opening invitation for people to greet each other - from my spot in the balcony you could see the whole congregation get up and turn to each other to shake hands and hug. That was lovely.

Anyway, so once home I had a glass of wine with my mom in front of the christmas tree, since everyone else was in bed, and then slept soundly until 9ish this morning. I was very proud of my christmas shopping this year, everything was met with delight and is sure to be useful. And in turn we have beautiful new serving dishes and kitchen accessories from my parents and an IOU for Avenue Q tix from my sisters for when it opens in Toronto this summer. Corey has a low-tech but versatile home gym, between my gifts and my parents'. And my mom made me this gorgeous jacket...when I was little, about 6 years old, mom made me this brown corduroy jacket that I loooooved. I was looking at a picture of it some time ago and remarked how much I would love to have a jacket like that again, if she ever had time to make it. She's so busy all the time I figured it would be years, but apparently her and my aunt sat down and powered through making it in a day. I will have to post pictures at some point. It's soft and warm and has a cheerful apples-and-apple-blossom lining. Can't wait to wear it in the spring!

Tonight is huuuuuuge dinner followed by BSG: Razor, which I got for my dad and should make for an excellent old-fashioned family sci-fi TV night. Meanwhile I think I will have a glass of wine and see if I can heckle my sister into playing some duets with me.

There are some gorgeous christmas decorations for sale in the market these days - wreaths, garlands, and other hangings and arrangements, all made out of pine boughs. They're beautiful, and they smell soooooo delicious.

This brought on another installment of an ongoing discussion between me and Corey about christmas decorations, which he originally wasn't sure he was comfortable with in our house. I was fine with this until the past couple years, when it has started to seem a little unfair - we have some hanukkah decorations; we light a menorah; we light sabbath candles and say blessings in Hebrew over our food every now and again. Why then should the one day I celebrate out of the entire christian calendar be forbidden from appearing in our house? I don't want to put up a christmas tree - it just makes no sense to me at this point, since we're always at my parents' house on christmas day - but I don't want to rule it out for the future (say, when we have kids).

However, I do understand that christmas has a tendency to devour the entire season. And I hate the "christmas sprawl" that has trees up and muzak blaring as of November 1. So our proposed compromise is that just as we have 8 nights of hanukkah and 8 nights of passover, so we will have the 12 days of christmas (although probably either the 12 days before or the 6 days before and 6 days after, as opposed to the traditional 12 days between christmas day and epiphany). We'll see how this works out.

Meanwhile, time to cook some more. Today is for triangles!!