Christmas is good. Christmas is very good.

I'm sitting here in my parent's basement, watching the fake Christmas tree spin in circles, listening to my one nephew make little boy sounds as he jumps on the couch and slashes his plastic sword through the air, and helping two of my other nephews play a computer game on my OLD computer while I burn recovery DVDs for me NEW computer!

Our Christmas festivities were great fun. We went to church on Christmas Eve, which was lovely, as usual. Half the fun of going to church on Christmas Eve, I must admit, is seeing friends who are normally scattered far and near, yet all come "home" at Christmas. Amazing to see old friends and get introduced to their respective spouses and new babies!

On Christmas Day, we dragged my nephews out of bed (one of them actually had to be woken up at about 10am because we were all waiting for him so we could have our breakfast together!). After opening our presents, we set to work in the kitchen getting the feast ready. My aunt & uncle and 4 cousins came over for the big turkey feast in the afternoon. We had a grand time together - a little recreation (shuffle board, darts), a little food (ok, a LOT of food), and a little smoking (just the shisha and some frankensense & myrrh in the incense burner). All the good things of Christmas :)

Then on Boxing Day, we had the usual extended family shindig up in Edmonton! What fun it was! Every year we go, I get shorter. My cousins are all SO tall, and now they're starting to bring along their tall girl/boy friends/fiancees/spouses. There are new people to meet every time we get together. For the most part, they're all lovely people. I have a lot of respect for my cousins who bring their new significant others to the big family shindigs. I think I'll probably be married to someone before I would make him face the extended family! It's a scary thing to meet all of my relatives...

Anyways, it was great fun to catch up with my cousins and family again, especially now that we're all growed up. And it's not every day that you can fill half a church with your relatives and sing carols around the organ!

Phew, it was a lot of Chrismassing, but so worth it! What a blessing it is to be surrounded by so much family and friends.