Christmas recap

Mom and Dad with Emma on the road behind their house this morning


My confusion about the new television has been cleared up. When my parents ordered themselves a new DVD/CD/VHS player, the price got chopped so low they purchased a second one. Mom asked Brenna whether this would be a good gift for me, but my daughter said I had a crappy TV. So I ended up with a whole new entertainment system. I'm grateful, as I enjoy movies, and videos are becoming hard to find.

Tonight we bought an old favourite, The Princess Bride, and one I've never seen, Silence of the Lambs (but I'm a Jodie Foster fan). The girls are watching the former right now.

Christmas at my parents' went well.

On Christmas morning a Carolina wren started singing outside. I opened the sliding door and stood on the threshold, letting fresh, moist air and brilliant sound wash over me.

The roast duck was delicious. Thirty minutes before the end I drizzled both ducks with a glaze of cranberry jelly, brown sugar, lemon juice and rind, and rum extract, and laid bacon strips overtop.

My parents are addicted to susandennis's jigsaw puzzles.

Everyone loved the knitted gifts. Brenna hasn't taken her hat off since Sunday, except presumably to sleep.

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Other gifts I received:

• From Brenna: a salad spinner (she has been frustrated with my old, broken one)
  
• From Marian: an aluminum sculpture of a seal from Hoselton
  
• From my parents: two Naxos recordings of Marin Alsop conducting the London Philharmonic in Brahms' Symponies 1 and 2, the game The Da Vinci Quest, a warm long-sleeve shirt, and other items