Christmas Eve

I am happy with the way that Chris and I have divided our time between our families: we are spending Christmas Eve with my family, and Christmas Day with his. This makes a lot of sense, considering both of our families.

For my family, Christmas Eve is the busiest. This year we spent the day having visitors showing up, exchanging presents and eating. Then the visitors went away and we settled down to a big meal (cabbage rolls, sausages and rice porridge). After supper began our real Christmas Eve traditions: Mom rushed away to do some final wrapping while the rest of us cleaned up the dinner dishes, and then we all gathered in the living room. We sang some carols (that's when I was sad that my brother's in the Caribbean: we really lacked his voice) and then Dad read the Christmas story. We sang another carol, and then we exchanged all our presents. Now we're spending the rest of the evening playing games, eating, and drinking tea. Chris and Mom are playing crokinole out in the dining room right now.

I wander around the house with a full heart, listening to all the calm Christmassy sounds and trying to preserve every image in my mind.

Christmas Day is usually much quieter (as it will be this year). Mostly, we spend the day eating and spending time around each other. But this year, we're spending that day with Chris's family, and we're having a real Christmas morning. I've never had a real Christmas morning before (presents are always on Christmas Eve), and it's going to be so exciting spending it with Chris's lively family.

Merry Christmas, folks.