Twelfth Night and Christmas

Wow, so much time, so little to say! Strike that. Reverse it.

Christmas at Holly's was AMAZING. I could not have picked a better surrogate family to spend it with. I had so much fun! There was:

1. Christmas Eve dinner at The Hatch, where Holly's sister and her sister's husband announced they're expecting (they showed a series of photos, which were ultrasound photos, and asked people to guess what they were, and Holly's cousin guessed, "A dead rabbit!")
2. Gifts on Christmas morning, and though I had no gifts from family (shame on you all; just kidding), Holly's mom got me lots of really nice, little gifts, including several items from Cath Kidston.
3. Brunch involving bacon baguettes. Mmm!
4. A treasure hunt (totally awesome! We must do this from now on!)
5. Christmas dinner at Holly's, followed by musical Christmas crackers in which everyone gets a whistle with a number from 1 to 8. The different numbers are different pitches, and they give you a baton and a sheet of "music" with the numbers necessary for several songs. We attempted most of the songs, and anytime we got through a song without a mistake, we all cheered. On one song, number 7 whistle kept missing his cue and we ridiculed him heartily, until we realized that his whole section of the table had been given the wrong sheet music. They were playing a different song! We had so much fun and I couldn't help thinking that it would have gone completely differently if Grandpa Peterson had been there.
6. Boxing day mulled wine and Morris dancing at The Hatch. The Morris dancers danced around flapping handkerchiefs and could not have looked much more ridiculous.

The day after boxing day, I rushed home, then rushed out to Heathrow to meet Jacque! We've been having lots of fun, though the temperature decided to drop as soon as she arrived and we've been quite cold for several days now. There's too much to recount right now (after all, it's 1:30 am on New Year's Day and there is drinking to be done!), but this evening, we decided to try to see a show. Mamma Mia was completely gated up, so we headed to Spamalot to see if they had any reserve tickets. On the way, we saw a theater showing Twelfth Night, so we decided to try that instead. For £10 each, we got to stand behind the very back row of the balcony. I was worried we wouldn't be able to see, but that wasn't a problem. It was a really good show and it felt very romantic to imagine myself a poor peasant who can only afford to stand at the back to see a Shakespeare production. As opposed to last night, when Jacque's theater connections secured us amazing seats to Blood Brothers...for free!

Rania arrives in just a few hours, so I guess I'd better get on with the revelry and grab a couple hours sleep before meeting her and Ben. Yay!