What a Christmas!

It has been a whirlwind of activity the last 4 days. I can hardly believe that Christmas has come and almost gone! Tomorrow we leave for Amsterdam for a few days to celebrate my big three-0. We decided that we wanted to be lazy all day today so I cooked our Christmas dinner for Christmas Eve. We started with roasted red bell pepper soup and then I made a lemon pepper roasted chicken, sweet potatoes with praline topping and green beans with toasted pecans. We finished things with a homemade pumpkin pie... yes, we had pumpkin pie for Christmas. We didn't have it for Thanksgiving and when Chris was flipping through the cook book and saw the recipe he decided I had to make it! Everything turned out delicious. However, we had to do dishes every fifteen minutes because I kept running out of bowls, plates, utensils, etc! Chris loved the food but I think he was going to cry if I asked him to wash another dish.

After dinner we headed to St. Paul's Cathedral for Christmas Eve Midnight Eucharist. Neither Chris nor I are practising Christians or even all that religious, but St. Paul's is a landmark in London and Christmas services are known to be amazing. We got there around 10:15 pm and there was a queue of people down the side of the church and around the block! Services didn't start until 11:30 pm and I think Chris and I were both almost asleep. The church is breathtaking and it is amazing to think that they have been having services at the same sight since 604 AD. I don't think I have been to too many places with that much history. The men's choir sang throughout the services and I was shocked by the acoustics. They sounded splendid but we couldn't understand a word because they were singing in Latin! We even had the words (in Latin) in front of us and couldn't follow along. There were about 1000 (perhaps more, I can never figure this type of thing out) people at the mass and about 998 stood to take communion. About 15 minutes into communion we decided to make our sneaky exit and catch a taxi home. Unfortunately, sneaky was not in the books as I wore high heels and the floors are marble. I tried to tip toe but that just made me look silly so I clicked and clacked my way to the exit with Chris turning red behind me!

Father Christmas (aka Santa) had visited us while we were gone so we felt obliged to open our stockings. It is amazing how Santa always knows just what I want! We finally made it to sleep around 2 am... Only to get up at 9 am to open presents! Isn't it funny how Christmas morning instantly reverts us back to age 10?!? Chris and I both get giddy and giggly. I was ready to strangle him this morning because he insisted on having his coffee ready before we opened any presents! The coffee maker has never brewed slower... I think it was taunting me!

We are finishing our wonderful Christmas off with a yummy meat and cheese board with fig jam and Belgium beer... I love Christmas!