and a partridge in a pear tree

Good morning darlings, let the "3-posts in one day" recap begin! On Christmas Eve I received my long-awaited Secret Santa gift. Despite having headed the exchange it is Heather who performed the swap so it was a complete surprise to me. My favorite :).

I received my package from the wonderfully generous Joy! I was so excited to find that each gift was individually wrapped and that my card was in puzzle pieces. Tricky tricky ;) 'twas a blast putting it back together, (it has most definitely been a while,) and so worth it, with an adorable picture on the front and a sweet message on the back. Everything was perfect and very much appreciated.

And that is when hunger struck in a big way. It was only about four in the afternoon but since we weren't expecting company until seven I knew that I wouldn't be able to last. I had a quick bowl of mushroom and root vegetable soup to hold me over.

I received not one, but two, containers of  tea (I cannot wait to try these flavors), a pin, an eco-friendly water bottle (aka my new assistant, she shall come with me everywhere), a pair of luggage tags for traveling (hoping to put these to use soon), a bag of coffee, and place holders for the dinner party I will surely hold when I get my own place (I adore these: black sheep, goody two shoes, spoiled rotten, over achiever, prodigal son, know it all, live wire, and globe trotter). I cannot thank you enough Joy!

A little while later though the tummy rumbled... again! and I tried Mary's Gone Crackers for the very first time. These are beyond amazing, not sure what took me so long to take the plunge, but I couldn't help but think of Ang as I crunched on the seed & grain delicacies.

Finally, my aunts, uncles and cousins piled in and we served the appetizers of sliced sausage, cheeses, olives, tostadas, and my father's ceviche. You can read more about the Mexican Nochebueno here, if you'd like.

In this tiny bowl of mine I had ceviche and a bulgar and chickpea salad I'd prepared for myself earlier (since most of the food contains meat I wanted to make sure that I didn't go hungry). Alongside it, of course, I had a glass of wine, this one from Portugal.

And that is how I ruined my appetite. The rest of the fam then had tamales and bowls of pizole as their main dishes. I used to enjoy both very much but was not in the mood nor hungry this year.

Then we (my cute little cousins, my siblings, and I) lounged around and watched the Santa Claus 2 and a Night in the Museum, among other things until midnight (aka present time). Following the exchange la fiesta fizzled and I was fast asleep within minutes. And so, he came upon a midnight clear, of which I will go into more detail about at lunch time, stay tuned.