Christmas Review

We only had one Christmas tree this year, this little silver one.  I like the smell of a real tree, but it doesn't make a lot of sense to buy one in mid-December right before you leave town for two weeks, so we nixed the live greenery this time.  I tried to tone down the tinsel with folksy felt and wooden ornaments and a paper flag garland that we got on our trip to Portland last June.  I put up my collection of bird ornaments, too, but Iggy kept trying to eat them, so I had to take them down.

We invited some friends over before Christmas to help make a gingerbread village for the living room.  We had wine and funky pizza from Zing!, and things got pretty creative.  We ended up with a solar-powered house, an outhouse, and several structures that defied categorization.  Someone even made an aquarium stocked with Swedish fish.

When they were finished, we set them along the windowsill.  Now when the radiators come on, the smell of warm frosting fills the apartment.

I spent the holidays proper at my parents' house in New York state.  My family and I spent most of the week eating homemade lasagna, putting together puzzles and playing the highly-addictive Carcassonne.  Stephen took the train from Boston to Albany for my birthday on Monday and we went out to dinner with my brothers and their girlfriends.  It was lovely. 

And then...I got sick.  So how did I spend the last night of the year?  I took a shot of Nyquil and went to bed early. 

Here's to 2010!