Jolly Good

well, i didnt get a white christmas. santa was a little late delivering on that one. it started snowing at around midnight on christmas night, so its been pretty white since christmas.

i stayed with matt and his parents for 4 nights around christmas. on christmas eve we had the traditional quebecois dish tourtiere which is really just a meat pie, but without the gravy us aussies would expect. matts mum made it from scratch and the pastry was heavenly. absolutely melt in your mouth stuff. after which we opened gifts from matts sister who lives in vancouver. what a sweetheart, she got me a little oil burner with oil, from the body shop. a fantastic gift when you live with two smelly boys.

christmas day, matt got me up at 8am (for once it was me pleading for 10 more minutes in bed), only to discover that "christmas wasnt ready yet". so, back to bed for an hour. we opened presents from 9 until about 11. matt kept opening presents of socks and underwear, and getting increasingly disappointed with his christmas haul. finally, when seemingly all presents were finished with, his dad pulled out 2 little parcels for him that made everything ok. a 30gb black ipod. not a bad score. his parents loved my gift and its now hanging in the lounge room, waiting for me to make up its gallery style label so they know where each picture was taken. they got me lots of goodies, including some new pjs and 1/2 a litre of maple syrup. matt was convinced the duvet under the tree was for him, as his mum was very upset when he had found it in their car. so it was quite hilarious when it turned out that matts parents had bought it as a christmas present for themselves!

we sat down to a lovely late breakfast of pancakes cooked by me, made from the wonderful 'food for lovers' recipe where the batter is made the night before. i introduced matts parents to butter, lemon and sugar on your pancakes -previously restricted to beavertails.

matt and i spent the day watching the great escape and starting to load up his ipod. we sat down to dinner at around 7.30 with a starter of beet and tomato soup. followed by our wonderful main course of roast turkey with meat stuffing, mashed potatoes, pan seared asparagus, and a dish of julienned carrots and red onions.

i really didnt have big plate of food, but i was so stuffed. in fact we were all so stuffed we didnt eat the pudding until the next night.


in other news, matt sold his motorbike. it was picked up today. he got 2500 for it, which is probably less than its worth, and he still has to organise some new tyres for it and have them sent to the buyer.

am starting to worry about my lack of funding, and am starting to seriously think about taking matt up on his spur of the moment offer of staying with him..... i dont think its a wise idea. i cant imagine living with parents again. but i've got enough money in the bank to last maybe 2 months -rent, car insurance, phone bill, living expenses etc.

some fun news is that my friend tom, who i met in japan. is home in ottawa for his siters wedding and i will be able to catch up with him over new year! very excited.

my roommate tyler got a didgeridoo and a small djembe for christmas. what fun. can you imagine? living next door to this? mmmmm well, hopefully he improves very quickly....

no big plans for NYE. though on new years day, we are heading to matts grandmas for lunch. apparently i have no say in the matter. hopefully the weather will be nice and theres still some snow on the ground so we can go either x-country skiing, or just for a walk with snowshoes. last time i was there i was told i would have to come back and do this as theres lots of trails in the woods by their property.