These winter holidays have been lovely, and I’ve found myself enjoying each moment almost effortlessly: this is a good thing. (I credit all the exercise I’ve been having: skiing cross country and running, mostly. Moving is my antidepressant, and it has no side effects! Well maybe some sore muscles here and there but hey).

I’ve also been quite tired and I think that’s not because of all that exercise but rather due to all that cooking, starting on the 24th, with the traditional Christmas’ Eve dinner at our house, when I decided that making antipasti, spaghetti with scampi, a yule log AND cleaning out the fridge all at once was a good idea. The yule log was delicious and a big hit, and all the rest was great, too. And the fridge? Spic and span!

(Black forest yule log with chocolate swiss roll, black cherries and chocolate frosting: here showing that the thing DID indeed roll without cracking, big success)

For Christmas we got a new, bigger bed because the standard “french” size one that we have is one that I bought 12 years ago when I was convinced that I’d never marry or have children, especially children that would sleepwalk to my bed at night, every night, and things get kind of crowded now.

The kids got very lucky, since Michele feared they would be disappointed and ran to the store at the last minute to get them more plastic crap presents.

They loved their fleecy new jammies. I bought them in London in August, and they’re already on the small side, so I’ll have to modify them already. sigh.

Sleeping bags! Also a great present. The kids slept in them for a few nights in a row and now they can’t wait to go camping. (and I can’t wait to have the house all to myself)

After Christmas Michele and I threw a party, partly to celebrate his birthday and partly just for the fun of it, and it was really great. I made sushi, falafel, pigs-in-a-blanket and tons of other stuff and there was plenty of booze to go around. Unfortunately we were all too busy having fun, no one took  photos. I foresee more of these parties in the future.

Skiing cross country: my favorite thing.

And Santi’s first winter on skis. He seems to like it be oK with it.

New year’s Eve: we tried. We tried to stay awake until midnight, but we just couldn’t.

I made paella and we invited friends over, who like us, had no babysitters.

We even tried to have a sleepover, but they were all like: yeah right. In the end everyone went home before midnight and Michele and I said goodnight at 11.55 and crashed so fast I barely heard any fireworks.

Anyway, happy new year! Who knows what this 2013 will bring!!

My resolutions this year are very simple:

1.Run 15K.

2.Finish all my exams

3.Win the lottery.

What are yours?

This entry was posted on Friday, January 4th, 2013 at 11:13 am and is filed under cuisine or at least food on the plate, friends, images, my sons are smarter than me. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.