Christmas Rundown

Yes, we still come down in our bathrobes to open Christmas presents. Well, I did, anyway: Debbi wore sweats, and Karen had red Santa loungewear to wear. We came down mid-morning and Debbi baked scones, I brewed coffee, and then we opened gifts. My big present for me and Debbi was a new down comforter from Bed Bath and Beyond, which will be nice since our old comforter was not only old, but a little small for the cover it lived in. The new one is much larger.

I surprised Debbi with a couple of DVDs she wasn’t expecting, and we exchanged gifts with Karen (our houseguest for the weekend), too. My family and I always go a little overboard with the presents, which is always a little amusing since we’re also all pretty hard to buy for! Debbi finds that difficulty really frustrating, and was annoyed that she didn’t find anything for me that she was really happy with. She did, however, buy me a pound of marzipan (mmmmm), which makes me happy!

Karen is in training for a racewalking competition, and needs to get in some workouts while she’s visiting, so around noon we went out to the Stevens Creek Trail so she could walk for an hour. She took off and Debbi and I did our own – rather shorter – walk over the same span of time. Debbi unfortunately is still getting over a cold, which has settled into an annoying cough and making her sporadically miserable, so we took it easy on the walk. At least it was sunny and fairly warm.

We were hoping to go to the local kosher restaurant, The Kitchen Table for lunch, but they were closed. (A friend observed that maybe they were out for the traditional Jewish dinner on Christmas – Chinese food.) The local Thai restaurants are always open on Christmas, though, so that’s where we went. By this time it was 2:30 pm, so we went home to vegetate for the afternoon, expecting a late dinner.

I talked to both my mom and dad during the day, but not yet my sister. I should call her today.

Dinner took longer to cook than expected – it always seems to – but even though we ate at 8:30 pm, it was all still good: I baked bacon-wrapped, ketchup-glazed meatloaf, Debbi made mashed potatoes and steamed carrots, and Karen baked a blueberry pie. “Plenty of food” may be an understatement. Plenty of dishes to wash, too.

Today Karen’s doing a long walk as part of her training, so we’re hanging out at home for a bit, Debbi’s playing Mario Kart on the Wii, we ought to have lunch soon, and wemight stop by Bill’s for his annual Boxing Day party for a bit, then we’ll pick up Karen later in the afternoon when she’s done. And hopefully – if we can get a table – go to Sundance the Steakhouse for dinner. But other than Karen’s training, we have a fairly low-key weekend planned. Maybe a trip to the coast tomorrow.

I hope everyone else’s holiday was as fun!