Hurray for Christmas! We had a lovely, lovely holiday. We celebrated Christmas Eve with friends in various ways--lunch out at a luscious Indian restaurant (which we'll definitely be visiting again--yummm!) and evening drinks at another couple's house--and then spent Christmas day itself happily on our own as a family. Presents were exchanged, with great joy. We made a huge and wonderful Christmas meal (with a lentils-veggies-and-red-wine pie as our entree, followed by Christmas pudding, ice cream and mince pies) and then lay around feeling full and happy, listening to new CDs and reading new books.

I got a coffee grinder for Christmas, so my lattes ever since Christmas morning have been truly luscious, with freshly-ground beans every day. I loved Ellen Kushner's Thomas the Rhymer, which I read on Christmas Day straight after getting it, and last night when I was feeling headachey, I was enormously cheered by reading another new book: Arabella, by Georgette Heyer, a laugh-out-loud funny Regency romance with the best rescued-dog character EVER. (And yes, I'm even including Jennifer Crusie novels in that statement. This dog character was That Good. ((And that Nika-like!)) It was exactly my kind of book!)

Now I'm on the third of my new books, a really fun YA Victorian fantasy novel by Libba Bray called A Great and Terrible Beauty. This morning I finished writing Chapter Eighteen of Congress of Shadows, because Patrick helped talk me through my week-long block on it yesterday. And together, about five minutes ago, we finished off the last of the Christmas pie, and I am still stuffed and very happy from it. (Sadly, we finished the Christmas pudding last night. But there's still plenty of ice cream left!)

It's been a perfect Christmas. And in a belated-but-still-appreciated gift from the gods, I even got a lovely snowfall this morning. Nika and I walked through it with total delight, and played in the snow.

What a wonderful holiday.