New Year's and Gingerbread Day

I appreciate the t-shirt love! The t-shirts were about half from Redbubble, a site where I have found many, many gifts, as well as two throw pillows, three phone cases, a shower curtain and bath mat.  I scrolled through many shirts until I found one designer that really had a 'my family' vibe and ordered several of those, early in November, thankfully. Then the Canada Post strike went into effect, with several left to get. Fortunately, I remembered the lovely local woman who I've commissioned for several weird-ass sayings on t-shirts in the past: "Hi, It's me Rachel" for Collette's daughter, who always opened with this when she called Eve for a playdate, and it was adorable; "Stuffed Kumquats: It's what's for dinner" for my dad, who, since my sister and I were little and continuing with the grandchildren, would always say "stuffed kumquats!" when asked 'what's for dinner'; and "Fuck this fucking snow, Fuck!" for my friend Jody, who greets every first serious snow with this Facebook status (all her friends wait for it). So I asked her to do the remaining shirts. 

My sister and her family left on the 27th, and we had a few unscheduled days which was really nice. I did a lot of reading. Eve asked me to take her to the mall one insanely foggy day. It was terrible, but she is cute and funny and said 'you and me against the world', and it was fun. We had people coming over for New Year's Eve so I baked a couple of batches of dough still left in the fridge and bought yet more frozen appetizers. Eve went to Davis's house with her other friends and Angus went to the U.S-Canada World Juniors game with a friend who lives just over the border in Canton NY. 

The party was basically hanging out and talking and making fun of New Year's Rockin' Eve. Matt decided we should do the Globe & Mail New Year's Science Quiz. When his grandparents were alive we would always get together with a big group of his side of the family at a cottage somewhere nearby and Nana and his Aunt Kate always made us to the Globe & Mail Canada Day quiz. 

It was really hard. Partly because I'm not terribly science-y, but mostly because it was really about Globe and Mail science news stories for the year, and I none of us had read the Globe & Mail enough. 

Hilariously, once we got to the end of the quiz, Matt discovered that he couldn't get the answers without subscribing. So we then took even longer researching the answers, which were not simple or straightforward to find. We then discovered that every single one of us had failed. Still, it was fun and educational.

On the 2nd, the last of Eve's five friends was back in Ottawa, so we went to do their annual Friendsmas.

This consists of them exchanging their gifts for each other and then decorating gingerbread houses, complete with a large amount of truly appalling trash talk. 

Eve and Davis tend to work well together and go fairly safe and classic.

Alison and Marianna take big swings, start well and devolve.

Jackson's is the brave solo artist, and his was my favourite.

I brought Christmas crackers with gingerbread men on them. They had charades prompts as well as the hats, jokes, and small trinkets. 

They've been doing this since high school, and I love that they still want to.