christmas day 2011.

i'm writing this in a coffee shop that is playing ingrid michaelson.
drinking black and tan coffee.
cozy on a black leather couch.
across from me, rach is seated on a huge black leather chair that could stand to be used as a love seat. ;)
last night, my laptop charger's plug had an accident involved with a certain sibling, and all my fidgeting with it --and all three connection places-- has proven resultless.
ah well.
it says the battery has 2 hours and 14 minutes left.
sigh.
i'll hopefully only be here another hour or hour and a half.
anna's at an appointment talking to a lady who's interested in having her as a doula at her birth in a few months, and me and rach are chilling here for a while so that after the appointment is done, we can go hang out with steph, michaela, and who knows who else, while anna discusses wedding plans for/with heath and/or derek. :)
fun stuff.
it doesn't feel like sunday to me. not at all. = just a random observation.

so, this christmas . . .
it was a sunday.
it was good.
but, you know, had some sad moments because someone who lives 340 miles away had to work the days all around that holiday and the next. apparently. at the time. ahem.

so, after stating the fact that someone couldn't come up and spend some awesome bonding time on either holiday with me and my family, and we carried on with our christmas; our first christmas just our family in years.
usually on christmas day, we go over to gram's with lots of food prepped [mashed potatoes, roasted turkey, stuff like that], and gather with some of mom and gram's relatives.
not so, this year.
we came home from church and promptly did things like took naps and all sorts of other wonders.
i took a 3 hour nap. first one in a long time.
when i woke, i was recruited to the kitchen --er, the kitchen table-- to dice onions and mince garlic for every manner of fish dishes being made that night.
scallops and mushroom risotto.
shrimp, etc. creamy linguine.
creamy, cheesy, spinachy [fake] crab meat dip.
shrimp and cocktail sauce.
anna made the stuff, i made the crab dip, and ben helped anna make molten chocolate cakes. :)

 

and with stinging eyes the victims of onions, i ran outside to capture the sunset through the neighborhood.

1. exactly what happens when you don't have the best lighting and you forget you have it on manual and it's too fast. heh. also featuring, my crab dip and the assorted crackers. mmm.
2. jumbo shrimp. so good.
3. the creamy bechamel/white sauce with shrimp, etc in it, to pour over the pasta.
4. risotto! scallop and mushroom risotto. wow, this was good.

1. the finished seafood linguine.
2. ben, proudly holding up 2 of the several molten chocolate cakes. :)

1. dad, caleb, ben and rach. a funny little line-up. i didn't get too many good pictures of this living room time. lol. david and davidcito came over in the middle of dinnertime and joined us, and we had a jolly time the rest of the night. :) humorous, to be sure. and what's better than family, humor, and good food? psh....hardly anything. :)
2. me, wearing the hat caleb gave me for christmas [from charming charlie, that lovely store], sipping cinnamon-nut swirl coffee, a gift from a sweet lady at church. :)
3. a molten chocolate cake. heckyes.

oh. my. gosh.
3:45pm here in the coffee shop...the music that just came on sounds like the music in the beginning of Up.
no clue if it's part of the soundtrack, or something that the soundtrack was inspired by, or what.
but i'm about to tear up.
sigh.
on another note, i think they close at 4...and it's now 3:54ish as i'm publishing this...yay...we get to be kicked out sometime soon. lol. at least it's a beautiful day out. 

so . . . that was my christmas. :)