Holiday

B and I are here in One Great City! this year, which is nice because we can hang out together and do our own thing instead of splitting up for family obligations and sticking to schedules. Those things are also nice, but it's good to have a change once in a while. It's also a bit more relaxing.

On Christmas Eve I was released from the clutches of work halfway through the day, so we ran errands then went skating with J+J at the duck pond in the huge park in town. The pond froze into a sort of bowl shape so for parts of it we were skating downhill. In spite of the excessive amounts of Kenny G's Christmas pumping out of the speakers, I felt genuine happiness skating there.

We went over for a late meal and stayed the night. The next morning, they kindly lent us one of their cars because they live at the edge of the city and they figured bus service would be non-existent. We'd be going back the next day anyway so we could return it then.

On Christmas Day, it was just the two of us, and we cooked up a huge meal for ourselves. We had:

1. duck
2. stuffing
3. mashed potato with yam and parsnip
4. Brussels sprouts (for B. I have that anti-sprout gene)
   
5. carrot salad
6. cranberry sauce
7. gravy
8. bread and butter pudding
9. wine from Sardinia

It was delicious! Getting going was full of false starts as we almost never cook meat and this was our first time cooking a duck - plus, our kitchen is cramped and we don't have the right utensils or crockery to undertake this sort of project with smoothness - but it worked out in the end and everything tasted great.

On Boxing Day, we returned to J+J's for a party. We had looked up the bus before coming and had written down the times so we knew when to catch it home, because service was scant. J+J again offered their car and I considered it for a minute but it seemed ridiculous. They were talking about coming out to our place to pick it up the next day in another car and then driving it back, which sounded silly considering the bus was going there anyway. So we opted for the bus, and man. What a kafuffle! We really had to fight for it. People became very concerned. They just couldn't stand it. We were offered rides down the street, to the stop, half way; eyebrows and voices were raised; there was gasping; one woman looked me in the eye with pity and told me that she hates taking the bus. But it was a beautiful night and, after two days of lounging, I was ready to walk to a bus stop. So, despite the fuss, we took the bus home.

"Give them a medal!"

This is exactly what my thesis is about.

Anyway, it was a fun party. There were tonnes of nibblies. I have never eaten so much cheese in my life. B and I didn't know very many people, but everyone was friendly and we had a really good time.

These four days off in a row - four and-a-half if you count Christmas Eve - are prime movie-watching time. We've rented something like seven movies. We also have a 3D puzzle to assemble, the bonus there being that we can then get rid of it and free up some closet space. I like to think of myself as non-materialistic, but for someone who doesn't care about stuff, we sure have a lot of stuff.

The thing I've noticed this year more than others is how much hugging goes on at Christmas - with everyone and anyone. Normally I don't think anything of it, I just hug whomever, but twice this week, a compulsion came over me that I then suppressed, but the hug happened anyway. I don't know why I suppressed the feeling except that maybe I thought my hug would be rejected, but each time it was too late, some subtle signal had been sent which they then harnessed to hug me. Both times were really funny. One of these people is Brazilian so he's used to way more physical contact than we well-buffered Canadians. I'm just going with it now, like the lady at B's curling club who hugged and kissed me after we'd exchanged a single sentence.