Nog time!

I bought my first litre of egg nog today! Delicious, sweet egg nog. Didn't buy any rum, sadly. For the record, I love egg nog the first few times I have it each year and then I am perfectly glad to wait a while to enjoy some more right before Christmas. I drink mine straight-up, like milk, but I've been known to enjoy the grown-up version too. I know not everyone loves the stuff... It's one of those love-it or hate-it things. One of these years I'm going to have to clean out the liquor cupboard to make Martha's special egg nog. Hello - it calls for 3 cups of bourbon, half a cup of rum and 2 cups of cognac!

PS - I totally love the card above, from Pinecone + Chickadee. Must have. Found it while googling 'egg nog'. And their mustachioed snail makes me giggle.

I can't believe it's getting close to Christmas already. We're super excited about Cole's first one, and I'm going to have to try very hard not to spoil him... We have pared things down to a reasonable level amongst ourselves and close family in the interest of not being over-consumers, but it's so tempting seeing all the cool stuff out there for kids. Stockings still are my hands-down favourite part of Christmas presents, and I really love making Jamie's every year. Can't wait to work on Cole's together... We found a few stocking stuffers today on a random visit to the Granville Island Toy Company on Main, and we had to try very hard to keep them in my secret present drawer (well, secret to Cole anyway) and not play with them straight away.

Booties from Bonnie

Check out these awesome booties that Bonnie knit for PJs! Aren't they adorable?

I have it on good authority that they weren't too tricky, but I am still a little intimidated by knitting patterns. I'd love to knit something with structure like this (hats have been my most complicated effort to date). But then again, they're so adorable that there really is lots of incentive to try! Way to go Bonnie - thank you very much! I know PJs will love these.

Christmas recap

Hope everyone had a lovely Christmas yesterday! It snuck up on us a bit this year since we were preoccupied with the sudden need to move, but we had a very special one.

We stayed over at Dave & Bonnie's for Christmas eve - so we were ready first thing in the morning for Bonnie's delicious homemade cinnamon buns. We enjoyed opening our stockings and trading secret Santa presents - I didn't make a list of course, but if I had, everything that I unwrapped would have been on it! "Santa" (Jamie) is a very thoughtful gift giver!

After a little time lolling about in the afternoon we left to drive to Ian & Christine's for dinner and by then it was snowing! It amounted to a few centimetres and was such a lovely, swirlingly pretty festive touch. It made driving a little bit slower too, but it was worth it! A white Christmas is a rarity in Vancouver - no complaining here. Dinner was excellent and the jokes in the Christmas crackers seemed (ever so slightly) better this year.

Of course the coup de grace of the night is the gag gift exchange - the new family favourite for about five years running. Lots of laughter and gift stealing, plotting and mock revenge too. Of course my personal favourite is seeing who got the gifts we put in...

The best had to be Ian getting a framed photo of the nightmare-inducing New Year's baby, a creepy old doll from the antique store who is still resting at our place after making an appearance in the exchange for the last two years in a row. It was hilarious to hear Ian exclaiming his relief for not getting the baby again (he got it the first year then I got it last year) but in the end that made it so much funnier. I've made money off that photo on iStock!

And our other gift ended up in Todd's hands - the "romance" kit, including terribly cheap and undrinkable "champagne", a instruction book on wooing from the '30s entitled How to Make Love, some smoked oysters, a cinnamon candle and some heinous grocery store cologne.

I'm sure someone, somewhere will put some of these items to good use! And if not, there's always regifting for next year...

They're grrrrrrrrrrrreat!

Sheila brought this lovely book in for me today as a gift - Great Expectations (pregnancy version, rather than Dickens!). My all-in-one resource for pregnancy and childbirth. Just skimming it so far, it looks chock full of information, tips and interesting stuff.

Can't wait to get home and really start reading it! Thank you!