Happy New Year!

Hi everyone! Hope you all had a great Christmas and New Year!

I spent Christmas with Henry's family. The day before Christmas, we had the Smeding family over. There were 17 of us for dinner. We had turkey and ham and lots of other stuff. Henry rotissiered the ham. We first studded it with cloves, then while it was baking, he basted it with a mixture of apple cider, dijon mustard, apricot jam and brown sugar. It was the best ham I've ever had. After dinner, we had our gift exchange. To decide who got to pick first as well as last, we had a shuffleboard tournament. I almost won. :-/ It was the kind of gift exchange where you can steal items from other people, up to three times. Lots of fun.
Christmas Day I didn't feel that well, but we had a quiet day anyway. Boxing Day was the Bosch Christmas dinner/Bosches' 25th anniversary dinner. There were 52 people there altogether. After dinner, we had a chocolate fountain fondue with pineapple, grapes, banana and apple. That was fabulous! Later we also had a gift exchange. It's funny how you can get a pretty accurate glimpse of someone's character through a gift exchange like that. I enjoyed getting to know some of Henry's family. Some of them are real characters. Mrs. Bosch's brother Brian and his family from Winnepeg came later too.
On Tuesday, which was actually Mr. and Mrs. Bosch 25th anniversary, Henry and Alyson and I gave our gift to them. It was a small scrapbook summing up their life together. In the afternoon, the three of us went to Ikea for a little window shopping. Then we rented The Importance of Being Earnest. Great movie. To celebrate their anniversary, Mr. and Mrs. Bosch went out for dinner to the La Ronde in downtown Edmonton. Henry and Alyson and I and some others joined them for dessert. The La Ronde is at the top of the Chateau Lacombe above the river valley. The entire restaraunt revolves once every hour and twenty minutes. That was a pretty special way to celebrate 25 years.
Wednesday, I went shopping with my mom and Julie and Jessica. There were lots of Boxing Day sales on, and we picked up some deals. Henry met us for lunch at Tim Horton's. One thing that bothered me that day, it was December 28, and they still had Christmas music playing. I felt like singing very loudly "...Santa Claus has come and gone."
Thursday and Friday I worked. Henry went to Jasper skiing with a few friends on Thursday. Friday we were let off work early, so we got to my parents early. Alison and Steve came for the weekend too. We had our family gift exchange Friday evening. I was given a mug tree and six triangularish mugs to hang on it, as well as a Twisted Whiskers notebook and notepad.
On Saturday, the men worked most of the day on building a huge pile of scrap wood and other stuff for a bonfire. Mr. and Mrs. Doige and Fiona came in the evening and we went to church for our Old Year's Eve service. After church, we had the biggest bonfire I've ever seen. Dad called our friend who is a volunteer fire fighter and lives close by to let him know it wasn't a house fire or anything. That was lots of fun. We started off the New Year with singing and prayer altogether. None of us stayed up late this year. We were all pretty tired.
Overnight I developed a fever and sore throat, and I had to stay home from church on Sunday. I spent the whole day in bed. This morning Henry took me to the doctor to get checked out. I have tonsilitis. Not the greatest way to spend a holiday and the beginning of a new year, if you ask me. Ah well, I guess it's partly my own fault for letting myself get run down. Henry went home this afternoon. Today Emily and Julie and Jessica went skiing to Rabbit Hill in Edmonton with a group of young people. They haven't come back yet.
This is post is a little rambling and quite random, which I can chalk up to Advil and penicilin.
Anyway, I wish you all God's blessing in the coming year.