this morning the living room looked lovely and I enjoyed the serenity as I sat in the quiet and enjoyed the lights…

the Ottawa kids and I Skyped and we opened our presents together… following our usual pattern, in this unusual time, we opened the gifts one at a time… it was great fun… they liked all their gifts, which made me happy…

one of my gifts from them was all the fixings for my New Year’s Eve dinner… usually on New Year’s Eve we have steak and lobster, although for the last number of years that meal has happened on New Year’s day… there was beef carpaccio, lobster, truffle chips, olives, red peppers, cookies, a lovely glass of wine (with gold in it) and a festive cracker…

there were also gifts from a number of friends, filled with goodies… I am blessed…

a bit later the Winnipeg kids FaceTimed as they opened the gifts I had sent over… I didn’t do so good with their gifts as two of them had received the same gift from their parents, lol…

yesterday I peeled potatoes and turnip, made stuffing, and produced Thai Shrimp soup so that there wouldn’t be too much to do today… I had decided that, even though I would be here alone, I wanted a proper Christmas dinner… it was delicious;-)…

it was a different, but very nice, Christmas…