Yule Eve

Some of us are working really hard this Yule Eve. And...

...some of us are not. Didn't know you could fit six cats on a loveseat, didja?

I put in a long day today and have, oh, I don't know... let's say... 80% of my to-do list accomplished in preparation for family arriving tomorrow. It's hard to assess because some of the tasks on my list took 30 seconds to complete - call the nursery to see if they have more of the red ribbon for the tree, for example - and some tasks took an hour - drive out to the nursery and buy the red ribbon. I probably could have managed the drive and purchase in half that time but there was that extra bit where the owner of the nursery, her mom, and I spent a half hour leaning on the counter discussing our favorite holiday movies and our respective trips to London. All in all, I'm very pleased with myself. And all on less than five hours of sleep. Hopefully I'll get to sleep in a bit this coming morning. But not too long, I still have some boxes to drag out to the garage now that I've run out of room to put up decorations, and having managed to make about two thirds of the gifts left on my list (I bought some last minute replacements for the rest), I've got more wrapping to do.

One of the things I'd hoped to do this year is make a Yule Log. A Buche De Noel. That didn't happen. But I do have a nice round chocolate birthday cake for the sun's birthday. It came free with my supermarket shopping yesterday. That's probably all we'll manage. We usually have a cake and some years I try to plan my Yule menu to include all round and sunny colored foods. I bet the pizza we had tonight fit the theme nicely. So did the round cookies I just polished off. BURP. Yum.

There's no Yule Log but I can offer you some nice photos of a warm, crackling fire in our winter's fireplace.


Brrrrrr. it's supposed to get down in the single digits tonight. Feel free to put your hands up towards your monitor and warm them by the fire. Aren't the purple flames magical looking!? And if you look closely, you can see fire fairies (some people boringly call them sparks) dancing above the flames.