(Christmas Eve)
(Post-blogged Tuesday, 12/27/2005)
Woke up early very groggy after a stressful night of weekend preparations for the Christmas weekend and drive down to my brother's lovely home down south - for a weekend full of cooking, babysitting, more cooking, playing with my nephews & neices, eating, cleaning, and more cooking, then some xmess present exchanges, parental stress, screaming children, laughter, story telling, then more cleanup and then a healthy drive home so I can unpack and destress.

I went on a quick training ride before I drove 4 hours down south, just to stretch out and destress before I embarked on the above paragraph. It was a little windy, but nice weather - a mere 32 miles. I was groggy, but needed to do it. Finished up, took a shower and then took the little I had left to pack in the car and just GO.

It was record time, I left at 11:30 and got down there at exactly 3pm. I arrived to a mansion full of children all hopped up on candy and in good spirits n hugs, and a warm kitchen where I was greeted with my brother who was making a soldier's effort in making a chocolate tort**. He was up to his sweatered elbows in chocolate and vanilla fluff, folding things over very concerned of the level of folding it too quickly. To make a long story short, he looked DAMN good doing it (the end result was another story, with a nice ending**).

The weekend festivities were traditional and outlined with a few quirks as we love to just do - we discussed this over a beer, The eve usually consisists of Christmas pagent at the church, then we'd come back and make Oyster stew***, read xmess things to the kids and check NORAD online to see where Santa was travelling before they go to bed...then brine the turkey for the Christmas dinner the next day, while having a beer or two while we lay out all the presents after the kids are dreaming of sugarplumbs and XBOX 360.

We become worn out and head to bed. That's what we did.

**(the "tort" became a very expensive brownie cake, replete with more chocolate and epicurious massaging to turn it into what's been defined as the "Double Death by Chocolate Black Hole Defibulator Cake" - it was the richest thing possible, because the "tort" was taken away because a certain wife turned off the oven instead of hitting the timer button, the "cake" fell...and it needed a rescue. It was just fun, overall)

***(the Oyster Stew is ALWAYS a fun treat to make and to enjoy - we make it from scratch, simpler than it may seem, but oh sooo damn good)

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