I hope everyone who celebrates had a great Christmas yesterday. Bill and I had a lot of fun. I captured some of it in a video, but I also got lots of pictures. Bill is usually not very good at buying presents for me, because he doesn’t know what I want, or what I’ve already bought for myself. But this year, he gave me a great surprise that I genuinely love! The funny thing is, I doubt most people would love it… but because I’m “obnoxious as hell” (according to my mom), I was delighted to receive it!

I usually buy a lot of books for Bill, but this year, I truly went nuts. I bought him a couple of new cookbooks, even though he usually finds recipes online. I always buy him cookbooks, but this year, I got him an Armenian cookbook and a new Nigella Lawson one. He loves Nigella. I got him new tarot cards and a couple of reference books about tarot cards and symbolism. I got him books by Carl Jung’s protege, Marie-Louise von Franz, as well as one by Jung himself. There were some kitchen tools– a new water pitcher, orange peeler, artsy bottle opener, food chopper, a wooden Tile Rummy game set, and a Le Creuset grill platter. I got him two new sweaters from Ireland, a home brewing journal, books about coffee and fermenting foods, and a large lighted magnifying glass to help with close tasks.

Bill got me a new digital camera with a memory card, two geeky t-shirts in colors I like, a new jigsaw puzzle, a light panel to ward off SAD (which I don’t think I have), and he says two more are coming. But the best present was a wooden sculpture he bought from an art dealer in Wiesbaden. I noticed it last year, when we had some picture framing done. I took a photo of it and put it in this blog… then happened to mention it to Bill a couple of months ago. I wished I’d bought it when I saw it.

Bill had some dental work done a few weeks ago, and the office is within walking distance of the art dealer. So he walked there and looked for the sculpture. He didn’t see it, but thought to ask the dealer about it. It turned out they had an exhibition going on, so they had moved a lot of art to the back. Bill described the sculpture and they did, indeed, still have it (not a surprise to me). The dealer brought it out and Bill paid… a lot of euros for it!

It’s definitely strange, provocative, quirky, weird, and potentially offensive… But I LOVE it! I suspect it will make the few people who visit our house stop in their tracks! It’s the kind of thing our uptight former landlady would have hated, and the idea of her sneaking into our house when we weren’t home and seeing this warms the cockles of my heart. Of course, she’s in our past… but I’m sure there will be others like her in the future, right?

Below is a video I made of our gift exchange… It’s not particularly well edited, and I expect only my mother-in-law will watch it.

I have some photos, as well…

And below are some photos of the food… Bill started us off with baked eggs done in the Instant Pot, grits, fresh orange juice, coffee, and homemade bread. Later, for dinner, we had a savory cheesecake with Gouda cheese, Gruyeres, bacon, and spinach. Also, there was a side salad with balsamic vinaigrette, homemade bread, and local wine poured in new wine glasses gifted to us by Bill’s mom. For dessert, we had cherry cheese pie.

Perhaps my favorite part of the day was during the afternoon. We were listening to Christmas music and a song by Kenny Rogers came on. All of a sudden, I remembered his 1969 hit, “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love to Town.” That was NOT the song that was playing, of course… but before I knew it, I started coming up with lyrics about Elon Musk. Bill joined in, and before we knew it, we had collaborated on a song parody. I sang the new version, set it to AI generated images and memes, and uploaded it to YouTube.

All in all, it was a very nice Christmas 2024… one hundred percent drama free! This is in contrast to Christmas 2004, which was definitely not drama free. But that’s a story better suited to my other blog.

Hope your holidays are grand!