Christmas Week

Holidays are in full swing. I am done my practice teaching in English, and now have two weeks off of sleeping, drinking, and eating. Well, I do have other, more responsible things to do as well, but the less said about those the better.
Christmas eve was spent in Oakville, with my Dad and June, and my bro, and a big meal.
Christmas day was spent in Toronto with my brother and friends who had no family obligations this year. I woke up, drank many cups of coffee, talked to numerous people on the phone, and watched the Charlie Brown Christmas special - which just gets better as you get older, I've determined, and also brings back memories of my triumphant performance as Charlie Brown himself in a school play when I was, like, 8 years old or so. In the afternoon, a group of us went to see "Pan's Labyrinth," which I really enjoyed; although it is a little heavy on the grim realities of evil sadistic fascists in 1940's Spain, and a little light on the fairies and satyrs and general fantasy storyline. I was in the Christmas mentality of an 8-year old, so got extra emotionally involved in the storyline. I covered my eyes and squirmed in my seat alot.
Then the bunch of us went for ethiopian in my neighbourhood, and drank much wine, and talked of absurd, totally non-festive christmas topics. It was awesome.
Now, I'm in Kingston at my mom's, with my aunt and bro, celebrating christmas number three, which involves possibly more cookies and food and wine than the first two christmases put together. My mom pretends to try to be low-key about christmas, but she's such a mom she can't help herself.
Below: The explosion of christmas that is my mom's house. In the background, my mom is in the kitching making her one-thousandth pound of food, and I'm doing a Charles Wysocki puzzle that my family has determined has a homosexual theme. (More on the puzzle later)