We're home and sick!

Well, we had to cut short our visits! But, I will start at the beginning. We had a quiet Christmas Eve and quiet Christmas morning - just me and he. We ate our traditional French-Canadian tortierre doused in ketchup. I know it sounds gross - it did to me, too, when I first heard of it. The tradition got started back in the day when my husband's relatives would all go to midnight mass on Christmas Eve, then they would all go back to someone's house to drink and play music and eat. The children would be put to bed right after church and when they got up Christmas morning to open presents, there would be the leftover tortierre for breakfast! The children grew up thinking they were supposed to eat meat pie on Christmas morning and, thus started the tradition. Unfortunately, we got so wrapped up in the tradition that we would make enough meat pies to last half the year! Now, James doesn't care if he ever sees another meat pie - and, I sort of feel the same way. So, unless his kids or Brent's kids develop a taste for said pies, I'm afraid this tradition may die with our generation!!!

We got to James' apartment around 2:00 p.m. and had a nice visit. He has his own Christmas tree set up and decorated. It occurred to me then that he's making his own home and life - I'm a little slow, I guess. Oh well, he seems quite settled and isn't too concerned about getting a better paying job at this point. His roommate, Matt, is moving to Montreal at the end of February and his other friend (who works at the same place as James) is planning to move in. James served us some nice shrimp & dip. Around 3:30 we went to Fran & Mike's to drop off our suitcase and then went around to Jan & Paul's for Christmas dinner.

We had a wonderful time! Poor Jan had been sick for a week before Christmas - she said it was touch and go whether or not Christmas dinner was going to happen. But, she came through with flying colours!!! Everything was delicious. We stuffed ourselves and then opened presents. It was great fun. Desserts were next - yummy! Christmas pudding with brandy butter, homemade trifle to die for, chocolate cheesecake, and pumpkin pie and whipped cream - oh, and assorted chocolates (After Eights & Quality Street) - oh, the agony!

At around 9:30, Fran and I drove James to his apartment where he was being picked up to go to another party; and Heather to her apartment to tend to her fat kitty and have an early night. We went back to Jan's, had another cup of tea and then went back to Fran's where we watched a bit of TV and then went to bed. I think I drank way too much tea - and ate too much - because I lay awake until 5:00 a.m. Plus, I started sneezing off and on all night. We got up around 9:30 a.m. to the smell of coffee and bacon cooking. Fran made us a wonderful breakfast and then we headed out to visit Bern's cousin, Coby in Toronto.

Coby was waiting for us with open arms. We got settled into one of the upstairs bedrooms. She lives in the house her parents bought right after they returned to Canada from living 8 years in England. It's a little house with lots of little rooms in it. Coby has two little Shitzu's and a big black cat (which we hardly saw since she hides from the slightest noise). The puppies are cute, though one of them is quite ill. We had dinner of ribs and corn on the cob. Bern and Coby got into their geneaology discussions and left me to the TV for awhile, not that there was anything on!! I thought I would try watching "Love Actually" again in case I was just in a bad mood the first time I saw it. But, no, I hated it just as much the second time. What an absolute waste of time - I turned it off after about 15 minutes. That's a movie that should have been great, given all the big names in it - but, it was so stupid!!! By that time, though, my cold was full-blown and Bern's wasn't feeling much better. I went to bed early and slept late. We had breakfast and then got dressed up to go to Maria Bonadio's for the Mass to be held for Mike Saturday evening.

We decided that we'd better let the Bonadio's know that we were both suffering with bad colds and that we would completely understand if they preferred we didn't stay and share our germs with them. Maria said not to worry about it, but Teresa said it might not be a good idea to stay since Maria's elderly mother was visiting from Italy. I was relieved! I felt like crap. We stopped by to see James at work and then came home - after going to the drugstore and picking up a ton of cold medications!

Today, neither one of us got dressed. Bern has a terrible eye infection - it could even be severe pink eye. He's going to see the doctor tomorrow morning while I'm having my mammogram. We were expecting Kim and Terry tomorrow, but called them and rescheduled for Saturday. We should be ship-shape by then!! We're hoping Penny and Howard are coming for New Year's Eve, but will have to call them to confirm. Anyway, this is my story and I'm sticking to it. Here's a little slideshow of our wonderful Christmas Day.