Boxing Day Bliss

Ahh, Boxing Day. My favourite day of the year!! I do enjoy Christmas, but the visiting frenzy of the few days surrounding it, plus all the preparations for the big day, means that no matter how hard I try, I always seem to be exhausted on Christmas Day (and I have to produce a full turkey dinner with all the trimmings as well!) Boxing Day at our house is sacredly protected as "The Day of Doing Nothing". We laze around in our pajamas, get dressed if/when we feel like it, and basically do whatever the heck we want.

I stayed in bed until 10 a.m., spent a lot of the remaining morning reading a novel, puttered around the house a bit, watched The Chronicles of Narnia (again, watched it yesterday too - the boys got the DVD for Christmas from my dad), listened to the Barenaked Ladies, ate "turkeyovers", took an after-dinner nap, and surfed the net somewhat aimlessly. In other words, a perfectly divine day. The boys were busy most of the day playing their new Gamecube games and watching Madagascar (another new DVD) so I had a lot more time than usual to myself, although we did get some group snuggles in today too.

By the way, our "Hundred Dollar" Christmas was, by and large, fairly successful. All of our friends and family seemed pleased with the gifts we gave, and the boys were thrilled with the fishing rods - there's no doubt they will see lots of use. I would have preferred to have a couple more presents to give my hubby (and okay - maybe a couple more to unwrap myself if I'm entirely honest) but all in all, considering that we spent just over $100 for our *entire* Christmas, it was very successful. I was quite impressed with everything we managed to pull off with that small amount. My gifts from my hubby, by the way, were a birdfeeder (built by him), homemade truffles, and a coupon book filled with certificates for goodies like a foot massage and a "get out of dishes free" card. I don't think I would voluntarily choose to do a strict $100 holiday again, but it was definitely a worthwhile experience, and has helped to clarify what the most meaningful and important parts of the holiday are for all of us. Hopefully our budget won't *require* us to do this again next year, but we certainly won't go hog wild with the spending next Christmas even if we can afford to.

I finally got around to uploading the photo I took of the gift baskets I made up for some of our friends:

the treats included a Norwegian "Julekake" (traditional Christmas bread), candied peanuts, toffee butter crunch (tastes like a skor bar), pumpkin loaf, and a jar of cran-raspberry jam. I then filled an orange crate with their personal gifts (all knitted by me!): a scarf for Jenn, socks for Bruce, a cube-shaped stuffed toy for Paige, and a CD of Christmas music for all of them. I also made them a "birdseed wreath" to give to their feathered friends by dipping a grapevine wreath into a mixture of melted shortening, peanut butter and cornmeal, then coating with birdseed and refrigerating until firm.

My dad got pumpkin loaf, peanuts, butter toffee crunch, a birdseed wreath, and another classical music CD to add to his collection.

My nan (grandmother) got cran-raspberry jam, pumpkin loaf, a knitted sachet filled with peppermint (from my garden) and rosemary (heavenly scent!), and an SPCA calendar featuring lots of cute critters.

Boxing Day is now officially over as the clock on my computer says 12:02 am so I'm going to head to bed!