Merry Christmas!

As we approached Christmas last week, I made a concerted effort to embrace the holiday spirit. Last Wednesday, I got a group of carolers together at work and at their urging we strolled from office to office spreading holiday cheer. I wasn't sure how our warbling would be received, but those still left in the office seemed genuinely happy to see us.

After the first round of decorating, we brought the tree to near-perfection adding little bright Christmas balls sent from my folks, and candy canes purchased at Choitram down the road.

We've filled up on traditional and new holiday TV shows, singing along with Misers Snow and Heat in "The Year Without a Santa Claus", and watching the AD/BC Christmas musical, "It's Christmas Charlie Brown," and this year's Doctor Who Christmas special with Molly. We continued the mood-boosting with a little "Love, Actually" and selected scenes from "Much Ado" on Christmas Eve.

Christmas morning, I walked down to the bakery to get some pastries, we unstuffed our stockings, and unwrapped our gifts and then Molly and I went to St. Joseph's for mass. They were holding services, sometimes three at a time, in 13 different languages--some of which we'd never heard of. It was a fascinating mix of people. We arrived as one service was wrapping up and as that congregation got up, we moved in and they started the next service immediately.

Since we went to an English-language service, the attendees were mainly Filipino and South Asian with a few of us Euro/American-types mixed in. We were seated under a giant shade and even felt a little chilly. Before heading home, we had a picture taken by the Christmas tree and snapped a few shots of the general atmosphere.

Mass was followed by brunch with friends at the Park Hyatt's Beach House. We sat sipping champagne and enjoying the company, the view of the Gulf out over the soft sands, and, of course, the food! It was a wonderful way to spend the day. The extended brunch sort of wiped us out for the rest of the day, but I got to talk to my folks before we sat down to our movie later in the evening.

Chuck and I worked on Boxing Day, but that evening we and Molly got to Skype with Jennifer and Patrick before walking to dinner at Cantina Laredo (not bad for Mexican-food deprived people). After dinner and some shopping at Lulu, we wrapped up that evening with Doctor Who Christmas and cookies from Dee Dee. Mmmm, lady locks!