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Holiday Recap

On Friday, December 22, I gave all of my finals. It was the last day of finals week so it wasn't much fun to have to wait that long but I think because there was no snow, it didn't feel as end-of-semester-Christmasy yet.

On the 23rd, we headed up to my parents' house and hung out, did the family gift exchange that night. Technically, there weren't supposed to be gifts since we are all going to Cancun in January for Sean and Angie's ceremony but my parents came through and were far too generous. Later that night, Austin and I met up with some friends of mine and LeeAnne gave me the Bon Appétit cookbook for my birthday; it also comes with a subscription to the magazine so it was a great gift. [Aside: I've gotten a number of interesting cookbooks lately; maybe during January break, I'll try to make a couple of things from each.]

Christmas Eve is when we celebrate with my dad's side so the relatives came pouring in around noon for lunch, gift exchanging, and then a shower for S & A. It was a small space filled with lots of people, talking, laughing, merriment etc.

That night, we went to Austin's parents' and just sat around a roaring fire, sipping wine and talking; very relaxing. His sister and her husband came over the next morning and we opened stockings and gifts. One of the highlights was from Austin's stepmom; she made us really precious little books with sepia-tone photos from our wedding, each page captioned with one word that summarized the essence of the picture.

We stayed until the 26th, watching some movies that we gave to A's sister, and then headed back home. The 27th was my birthday but I was a bit under the weather so it was fairly low-key. I finalized and submitted my grades that afternoon, good times. We went out for dinner but I wasn't thrilled with my pick of the special. No matter, I have a lot of time off so we're going to have a "re-do" sometime in January.

Now we're looking forward to New Year's Eve, staying in and cooking something new. In the BA cookbook, I found a recipe for salmon and risotto wrapped in puff pastry envelopes, that's my current vote for the main course.

posted by Kelly @ 8:49 a. m.