Christmas eve and First Christmas Day

Good afternoon! How is everybody doing? Still feeling stuffed and with a hangover or not so bad?

We had a great time so far. I spent the day of Christmas even veggin’ out on the couch with the cats, it was wonderful! After I submitted my paper for work I was officially free! I really didn’t feel like doing anything so I just stayed on the couch with my laptop, reading e-mails, blogs and did some random surfing, drinking loads of hot tea. At the same time I watched tv: Two guys and a girl, the Oprah. Oprah was really cool, she asked people of different countries (Denmark, Japan, Brazil, etc) why they are so happy. I liked Denmark most because they do not seem very career-oriented and focus on living a simple life enjoying the people around you. It was a real feel good show, because Oprah only showed the positive side of each country. She didn’t explain that the reason why everybody is riding a bike in Denmark, is because cars are not affordable. And even though important things like education and health care are free, other things are really expensive. Still, it seamed a really nice country I would like to visit. After that I watched a x-mas movie with Whoopie Goldberg and then the Boyfriend came home. He then went to get take out, because in all my laziness I forgot to get the meat from the freezer so I couldn’t make meatballs, lol. We spent the rest of the night watching more cheesy x-mas movies.

I also go my present from the Boyfriend’s boss! It was a huge bottle of perfume, like last year! I immediately put some on my hand to smell it. After the first alcohol-smell evaporated I smelled…..nothing!! several trial later we both still smelled nothing. It turned out that the bottle was a dummy: stores use it for display and it does not contain the perfume, lol. I think the Boyfriend’s boss got a ‘deal’ somewhere haha. The Boyfriend is going to ask his colleagues if they had the same thing. We still don’t know what to do yet. It’s not like I want it replaced because it’s pretty much a useless gift, but I also think that if he was scammed, he should know. What would you do?

Christmas morning we started off with a nice HUGE breakfast and….a white Christmas! It seriously started snowing when we woke up. Everything was still white from the snow we had this week, so it didn’t really matter that soon that snow turned into rain. After breakfast we went to the cemetery to visit the grave of the Boyfriend’s grandma. Even though most of the snow is gone already, the cemetery was still covered in 20cm of snow. Because of that, and because we hadn’t been there for a while, we had trouble locating the grave and spent over half an hour searching and getting soaked in rain and snow. But it was very beautiful there:

 

Do you agree, or just think I am crazy now, for posting a picture of a graveyard?

Then we headed back home, very cold and soaked. So we decided to make the hot chocolate from the box of goodies I got from my employer ( I don’t know about you, but here in Holland it is normal that every employee gets something for Christmas, traditionally it is a box with different food items, but it can also be a themed box, like last year we got towels and slippers or a breakfast theme including cups and plates etc. This year I had a box filled with things for hot chocolate 2 cups and a serving-thing, a bottle of chocolate, whipped cream, and cookies and chocolate to go with the hot coco):

We also skyped with my in-laws in Florida for a while. They were just having breakfast, so we toasted with juice (for them) and wine (for us, lol). Then we made some snacks and watched Pride and Prejudice. I have had that movie forever, and today the Boyfriend finally agreed to watch it with me.

Then we turned on some new random x-mas movie and started dinner in the mean time. Our entree was tomato-soup with mascarpone…from a bag haha. We really did not want to make things harder than necessary this year. The soup was really good and also had no artificial flavors etc, yummie! We had the soup while watching tv on the couch, how bad is that?
After that we went on to prepare the main course: roast beef with potatoes, my fav stir fry vegetable mix and italian salad.

Wow, my face looks weird in this picture! The Boyfriend was in charge of cutting the meat….of course hahaha.

The roast beef was real easy too. As you can see, it came marinated and ready in an aluminum case, so all we had to do was pop it into the oven and wait until the little thingy popped up out of the meat when it was done. The potatoes were pre-boiled so baking the was easy. The salad came with all the ingredient and dressing in a package and the stir fry was pre-cut too. Talking about an effortless dinner ha!

Desert was Viennetta ice-cake, yum! We had some tea while watching Home Alone (I know…) and digesting a bit. Wow, I felt pretty full, but it could have been worse. Then we went on to watch the rest of Home Alone in bed.

All together, it was a fun, relaxed First Christmas Day. No stress, just enjoy some time together. In case you are wondering: no we did not have any presents, because we already exchanged gifts at ‘Sinterklaas’, another Holiday on the 5th of December. I got my very own heart rate monitor then!

Today is Second Christmas Day. The Boyfriend is working right now and I am not really doing much today. The sun is shining so I might go out for a walk/run this afternoon. Tomorrow I have run planned a few other girls, at leas if the weather is ok. In the evening we will go over to my parents to celebrate Christmas.