Frohliche Weihnachten

Happy Christmas happened for us on Christmas eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing day! First we had a German Christmas on Christmas Eve, celebrating the traditional present swap with our housemates, while carols were sung in the background.

Christmas Eve

We had all worked, and we exchanged prezzies quite late that night - I have more photos, but we all look so tired, I will not be thanked for putting them here!

So, on Christmas day itself, Adam and I were up super early - him for work, and me for stockings!

Christmas Day

Stocking stash!

All presents opened

 So, Adam toddled off to work, and I rang lots of people on skype, which was lovely, and popped by Adam's work to say hello. I then had to go to work myself, which was tiring! However, once I'd finished, I joined Adam and Marie upstairs at the Happy Valley lodge for drinks, and was surprised to find dinner!

Spring rolls, calamari, nachos, dips and various other non-Christmassy foods - perfect!

After food, Adam and I went with some of our colleagues to the pub and had a swift half. We were pooped!

The next day, Adam went off to work early again, and I had the day off. So I slept in - fantastic. I'd had a stinking cold, and having a good lie-in really helped! However, once I was up, it was time for Christmas day mk III! Somehow, I ended up producing roast chicken, roast turkey, roast potatoes and other assorted roast veg! It was a fairly lengthy task, and I required assistance from both Delia and Jamie, and had the laptop displaying several different recipe websites all day! However, only an hour later than planned, all the food was pretty much ready at the same time, and we sat down to eat. Unfortunately, Flo had to work, but we were joined by Choong and Josh, who had provided said turkey.

Marie and Adam keeping busy attaching Adam's stomp pad while waiting for the food

The table

The chef

The gourmands (L-R, Adam, Josh, Choong & Marie)

The drinks

So, it is now New Year's Eve, and we still have turkey and chicken in the fridge...

Yesterday, Adam, Josh and Choong made a day of the "Cruz the Blues" contest, aiming to ski all the (open) blue runs in the resort. They pretty much did it! So, we turned up at Happy Valley where the most raucous prize-giving ceremony ever occurred. We came away with tshirts for all the entrants, a poster showing the ski hill, and a natty waterbottle with a charcoal filter, which I've fancied for ages, having seen one of our Vancouver friends with one.

The hard-won tshirt

In other news, Santa decided to gift us with lots of snow this week - view outside our house yesterday:

And we found another bear:

Over and out folks. Am going to see if I can squeeze a few runs in before starting work later. Have a lovely new year celebration, and we hope that 2012 is as fun for you as 2011 was for us. Here's to the next year!