Whew.

Happy December 27th! My favorite day of the year, because the Christmas foo-for-all is over and done with, and my life can go back to normal after having been terrorized for the past 6 weeks.

I love the week after Christmas, because the kids are entirely entertained, there is nothing that has to be done, and the house is full of spectacular leftovers, so I barely have to lift a finger to survive. I plan on spending the next few days lounging in my pajamas, reading all the good new books at hand and working my way through an entire box of Lindors all by myself.



Don't get me wrong, I do like Christmas itself, but the lead-up to it is exhausting and tiresome. My mother used to say that if the woman of the house doesn't make Christmas happen, it doesn't happen and she's right...I figure that the day I see a men's magazine covered in articles about "how to avoid stress over the holidays", then we will have acheived total equality.



We did have a lovely Christmas this year, though, despite my whining and complaining in the 6 weeks leading up to it. Our children are old enough now that they slept in on Christmas morning, and we opened our presents in the day light for the first time since they were born. Christmas Day saw us only changing out of our pajamas so that we could go over to my mother's for dinner, which was very nice. (A few years ago, my mother declared that she was never making turkey ever again...she and my father don't particularly like turkey or the leftovers, and she hated the way the turkey hijacked so much of her fridge space for 4 days beforehand. Usually we have prime rib, but this year we had roast chicken, which was dandy.)



My mother also made a trifle, which, as a dessert, I can take or leave, but as a breakfast, trifle is superb...the leftovers are highly prized. She gave me a great big portion, all for myself, which I enjoyed very much in the wee hours of the 26th. (When I lived with my parents, my father also held trifle for breakfast in high regard. There was a quiet but ruthless tussle for the remains of the trifle every year, which resulted in each of us trying to get up earlier than the other to have at it. We'd end up getting up at 6 then 5:30, then 5 to beat each other to it. I tell you, Christmas spirit and good will towards man went straight out the window when it came to polishing off the trifle before the other one knew what was up.)



We spent yesterday with the Mister's family, and got fed until we burst there, too.

I'm looking forward to a couple of days off work next week, too. As the kids have gotten older, I find their Christmas vacation time too short, and by taking a couple of days off I can manage some time with them. Usually, when they go back in January, I indulge in a little down time; I've made a habit of renting a movie on the Monday they go back and watching it in the middle of the afternoon. It feels like I'm totally playing hookey.



We are off to my mother's for dinner again this evening, but after that I hope to spend until Wednesday indoors, in my pajamas and on the couch with the cat. We have plenty of trifle and chicken and chocolate, we should do just fine.