In last week’s blog I had written that the season had pretty much wound down.  How wrong a person can be!  On December 21st I received orders totalling 200 fruitcakes.  Because I hate to be prepared, I was packaging and delivering for the entire day.

By December 22nd  it was all over, so I used the time to hit the stores early and do the last bits of shopping.  It’s so easy to get help and be able to do things if you’re in the stores just as they open.  I did hours worth of shopping in mere minutes.

Then, like every year of my life, on December 24th at 5:00 PM the balloon went up, signalling the beginning of Christmas.  Mom and Gerry arrived along with their poodle, Schwartzie.  We sang Christmas carols around the piano, which I played rather poorly, as always.

While eating hot shrimp h’ors d’oeuvres and sipping wine we opened a pile of gifts.  Gerry particularly liked a U-shaped pillow I got him for the flight to Nicaragua, but which he decided to use immediately.  He basically kept the pillow hung around his neck so that he was able to nap at the drop of a hat.

Nicky gave Denis a wide assortment of specialty beers, all individually wrapped.  This amount of beer instantly put Denis into a good mood.  In this mood he decided that drinking half a bottle of gin was a good idea.  However, on Christmas Day he looked a lot like the characters from the movie, The Hangover.

We watched that movie on Christmas Day, so it was very fitting.  When the camera pans in on the dentist who wakes up minus a tooth, that’s what Denis looked like.  He was kind of sweaty, pasty-faced with red-rimmed eyes and tousled hair.

Nonetheless, we were all able to consume the turkey dinner I’d made.  The dogs also got a bunch of turkey, which they certainly don’t need.  All three of them are obese, but dachshunds always try to convince you that they need more food.  They have baleful eyes which makes it really hard to say no.

However, I believe from the girth of everyone that it’s probably time to say no to the kind of consumption that’s been occurring over the past week.  It kind of reached its peak on the evening of Christmas Day. 

On Boxing Day I got up and was puzzled to find a frying pan with badly burned food in it on the stove. When Nicky got up he proudly announced that he’d made himself French toast the evening before. 

This was after having a huge plate of turkey and stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy, cranberries, yams and Brussels sprouts.  For dessert he ate half a chocolate orange and half a box of Pot of Gold chocolates.

Unfortunately, the entire family is off for the next week, so I’m planning to go to Osoyoos for a couple of days to get away from it all.  Then they can drink beer and eat kilos of food without me having to witness it for 48 hours.