Giftmas recap

We had a lovely Christmas! I woke up early and found an email from Cordell, staying in a Hokkaido mountain hostel all by himself, so after a bit of confusion we finally got a call through to him, which was awesome.

We ate stollen (a traditional German Christmas yeasted fruit bread that my mom used to make; my sister sent a loaf out for us), did stockings, and finally dove into the presents pile.

The Loot Report (photos to come):

My mother-in-law made us a new Christmas quilt, a really pretty one. My sister gave me some fuzzy wool slippers and a subscription to Art Culinaire, which I've never seen but am anticipating greatly. My dad sent us some Scharffenberger baking chocolate and an apron, which I tried out immediately (made some vegan cookies for J). jedusor gave me a shower head that glows blue when it's cold, then red for hot water. Clay took it upon himself to teach Linc about the Christmas spirit of giving as well as getting, and took Linc shopping for family and friend gifts; mine was a cool little fiber-optic fish nightlight. cosm3 gave me a knitting calendar and jillcook gave me a candle. I also helped Santa out by sticking one of these in my stocking.

Julia seemed to like her knitted wristwarmers and cookware, Clay liked his Sheldon book set (with an artist drawing in the last one) and copy of Mirror's Edge (a parkour video game), Bill liked his new copy of Agricola (gotta try it out soon!).

The last present under the tree was an envelope for me... Bill wrote me a puzzle hunt, with six different parts to solve (things like a sudoko, a cheery little Christmas video with a little figurine doing semaphore hidden in each scene, a cryptogram, some anagrams, and a dealie where I had to wrap a piece of paper around a specifically sized knitting needle to decode it). It was awesome, I just wish I hadn't been so slow to solve it all! It took me a good hour to sort it all out, but at the end, I was promised a radio for my van... a radio that actually has an auxiliary plug so we can listen to an iPod! w00t!

I've also been enjoying other people's presents: I'm well into Bill's new copy of "Nation," the latest Terry Pratchett novel (so far: fantastic!), I played a bit of Linc's new video game (Animal Crossing for the Wii), and I've done most of Linc's new puzzles and games with him (a Ravensburger rainforest frog puzzle, two different marble-run-type stacking sets, Gulo Gulo, and an I-Spy matching game).

My in-laws gave us some cash to get something for ourselves, and I'm thinking we're gonna spring for this cool KitchenAid mixer blade.

We didn't do much feast-wise... nobody was actively puking on Christmas morning, thank Maude, but we'd all been victims of the Great Tummy Plague of '08, and nobody was feeling chipper enough to cook anything more strenuous than pasta. My sister gave Linc a foot-long gummy snake that makes me think of a tapeworm, which hasn't improved the appetite at all.

Julia and I went to an annual Boxing Day event last night, with a white-elephant exchange. I managed to score a DVD of "The Producers," (and also "Blades of Glory," which cosm3's kid was drooling over, so I gave it to him) and, after I won the title of "Queen" by finding a coin in my gift and the right to pick through the unclaimed booty, also snagged "The Fellowship of the Ring" DVD for Julia.

I'm enjoying hearing what everyone else's holiday was like... if you didn't post it on your LJ, feel free to elaborate in the comments here!