Christmas was, as is always the case for me, a blur. I work retail, so I get very little time off leading up to the day. Christmas was always one of my favorite holidays as a kid, and it still is. I just don't get to do too much celebrating, since I often have to work Christmas Eve when a good part of my family's celebrating happens. It was a lovely day once I got out of work, however. We always have Christmas Eve dinner and Christmas day dinner at my parent's house, and I stay over and my family opens presents together in the morning. Just me, my brother, and my parents. We start with stockings in bed, and then unwrap the rest of the loot downstairs by the Christmas tree.
As you can probably tell, we do take the consumerism part of Christmas very seriously. But it's fun. We love buying things for each other and hanging out together with coffee, food and sometimes wine opening gifts from each other. I bought people a lot of books this year, as I usually do, because they are so easy to wrap. My dad has just gotten a new job where jeans and tshirts are no longer appropriate, so I had a great time finding him some new dress shirts. My boyfriend also got shirts.
My mom is the person I shop the most for. Not only do I do my own shopping for her, but my dad, who is not a shopper, gives me his Christmas budget for her, and I buy her a piece of jewelry. This year, I ended up ordering a custom ring from a company called Gemvara. http://www.gemvara.com/ It's always hard to find her things, since she is allergic to most metals, except gold or rose gold, and she won't wear yellow gold. Basically, she only wears rose gold, which, while it is getting easier to find in stores, is still a challenge. Most nice jewelry stores will only have a handful of pieces, and then only one or two in the price range. With Gemvara I was able to design a ring exactly like what she wanted, just under the budget I had. It even came with free engraving! The ring ended up being beautiful and very high-quality. You can tell there's a lot of gold in it. It is very solid. I will likely be ordering from Gemvara again.
As far as me, I got some new Vera Bradley items in the "Happy Snails" pattern, including sleeves for my nook HD+ tablet and my nook ereader, as well as a wallet and a tote bag. I also got a beautiful Coach brown leather ladylike bag, and two silk button down blouses from JCP in beautiful colors (these were the hidden gems of the fall, I think! 100% silk button-downs in amazing colors for less than $20). I also got a lovely jewelry box, which I will post pictures of when I get it all set up and filled with some of my stuff.
As far as food goes, that's always the best part of Christmas. We always have pretty much the same thing for both Christmas Eve and Christmas, because it's so much easier that way. Nobody wants to spend Christmas afternoon cooking! In years past, we have had seafood chowder, and then roast duck on Christmas day. However, this year, my mom, my grandma, my aunt and I all went to Disney World and had afternoon tea at the Grand Floridian, and were inspired to change up Christmas food. So instead of seafood chowder, we had an appetizer buffet with all sorts of goodies, like homemade onion dip, tomato and mozzarella balls on toothpicks, sausage, goat cheese and pear hors d'oeuvres, and more, plus a large selection of tea sandwiches. We still had duck Christmas night, because my dad cooks that and enjoys it. The food was amazing, but so much work. We will not be doing it again, not like this.
I have been trying to convince my family for years and years that we ought to roast a goose for Christmas. Just once, just to try it. "It's too expensive" my dad always tells me. Yes, geese are expensive. A frozen goose is around $50, which is a lot of money. But when he pulled his 3lb package of frozen duck breasts from the freezer and saw that he had paid $41 for it, he began to reconsider the goose prospect. We shall see!
As far as what I ate: everything. I basically ate everything, and drank wine to go along with it. I'm not even sure I could type out everything I ate, but it was a lot. But my boyfriend and his mom are leaving town for a week tonight, heading home to visit their family for the holidays, so I will have en empty apartment and plenty of time to cook nice, healthy meals and nobody to convince me to go out to eat instead. I will make up for my indulgences. Merry Christmas everybody!
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