Confession #45: A Couple's Christmas

Christmas is a time to celebrate with your family and friends. Although giving gifts has become an important aspect of Christmas, the best part of Christmas is cherishing precious time with your loved ones. I know that I have posted before about my annual Christmas traditions (see Confession #29) but this year, old traditions were thrown to the wind and new traditions were made. Being an immigrant, the only family I have in this country are my parents and my brother. This year, my family has returned to our home country for the holidays. I will admit that Christmas without them has been strange (but wonderful in its own, new way).

My husband and I celebrated Christmas alone today. We slept in late which is a rare thing indeed nowadays. When we finally got up, I immediately put on Christmas music to get into the spirit and then we opened presents. You know you have gotten old when you get freakishly excited about receiving clothes for Christmas. We decided to be ridiculous cat people and get our kittens presents as well. They ran around with their toys for hours until they both collapsed onto the floor and slept until we were getting ready for bed. After we opened presents, we did some yoga to relax and then I went into instant stress mode about cooking.

Cooking was by far the most interesting part of the day. I wanted to make a special Christmas dinner but damnit cooking for two is not easy. Making a whole turkey is impractical. Even a small turkey would have created an inordinate amount of leftovers. So I decided to take things a different route. As a diversion tactic, I made spanakopita as an appetizer so that my husband would be too busy munching to follow me around the kitchen. I then made stuffing, mashed potatoes, and broccoli just so that the meal still felt like Christmas. As the main dish, I made New York Strip marinated in lager and red wine vinegar (steak and beer...how awesome is that!?) and then topped the steak with a blue cheese sauce (ohhh my). To finish the meal off, we had some strawberry cheesecake. After all was said and done, I felt so fat I could barely get out of my chair.

Christmas has been good to us this year. Although we were both missing our families, we had a great and relaxing day. Well y'all, I hope that you had a very merry Christmas as well. Good night!

(PS: People who have cats will know exactly what I am talking about when I say that the picture above is a short-lived calm moment with my cat and our Christmas tree. If I find one more smashed ornament I might break into deep sobs.)