Party, Party, Party

The Lovely Bride and I have exhaustedly emerged from the Christmas Season unscathed. This year I think we did everything we could to make sure the T-Giving to X-Mas time was as hectic as possible - taking on additional work, hosting visiting relatives for 10 days, adopting two cats. The summation of this hustle and bustle was three parties on three consequecutive nights. Now that it is all past, and we are trying to regain some level of and recovery.

The party circuit consisted of shindigs with Sue and Monte, then Wolf and Shelly, and finally culminating with our own Christmas day feast. Ours was eleven friends at the table, a brined turkey (I really am pleased with this process, pulled from an Alton Brown article in Bon Appetite), a large ham dubbed "hamzilla", rolls, mashed potatoes, gravy, dressing, string beans and two deserts. Oh, and the experimental cranberry daiquiris that were stronger than mere amatuers should have attempted. It was the best way to spend a Christmas afternoon that I know of.

So we've cleared the last of the dishes, cleaned the last of the pots, and run the last load of in the diswasher. Now we have a week of leftovers and no firm obligations. The new cats are less shy after being here a week and the old cat is now aware that they are in the house (amd there was much hissing). The only things on my agenda are figuring out how our new digital camera works, and this "world of warcraft" thing I've heard so much about.

More later.