This is how it went, roughly. I mean, add a bottle of red wine, a playful dog, and a few too many branches, and voila! There's Christmas for ya!

I had a very, very good Christmas this year! In case you wanted to see a little snappyshot into my life, here you go! :) (If not, just skip the mundaneity and you can go find Sexy Elli here at http://www.ElliNude.com.)

Ready? Set? Go!

I was just about to buy myself a slow cooker, but I'm glad I didn't! My man's mother got me this excellent model! I love to cook, so Christmas is my time to stock up on kitchen gadgets and doo-dads!



I have always always wanted a cast iron skillet, and I finally got one! Now I just have to go to the gym to get strong enough to lift it when it's not empty! Jeebus!



Because there was a bit of Christmas money left over, my man and I picked out some new dishes for the kitchen. I've never had square plates before, but these ones are super cool! We ate off them for the first time last night, and they worked quite well. No spilling out of these ones! :)



Mr. Turkey turned out perfectly this year! It was a "Granny's" brand, which I'd never had before. It turned out so juicy and moist and had the most meat on him of any bird I've cooked! The breasts were at least an inch deep to the breast bone! Even the wings had meat I could cut off, and usually they're just throw-away pieces! There was a little surprise during preparation, though. When I was reaching into the cavity of darkness and muckiness, my first handful pulled out his little heart, complete with veins and arteries hanging off it. If I was of a more delicate nature, I probably would have screamed or vomited or both. But being the tough chick I am, I took it over to my boyfriend to gross him out with it. :)

I hope your Christmas was even more wonderful than mine!




~ Elli
elli@ellinude.com
my Adults Only photos: http://www.ElliNude.com

I just wanted to take a moment to wish everyone here a very wonderful Christmas. I hope you have some loved ones to spend tonight and tomorrow with, and if not, then at least a phone call or email from them to cheer you. Nobody should be alone tonight. If you are, then maybe you should go out and find another alone person and make two not-so-lonely people. :) And remember, it's too late to try to be good! Santa's already packed his sleigh!!


Wishing you and yours all the best,

Elli

It's Mr. Turkey Lurkey's big day today! He's in my sink, thawing out, getting ready for his big moment. I just found an idea on the interweb. You pour 3/4 of a bottle of white wine or champagne over the turkey before you pop it in the oven. I would love to try it, but I have a bit of a logistical problem. Mr. Turkey goes into the oven in an hour, and both my man and I are pretty hung over from a friend's party last night. In fact, he's so hungover that he's probably still drunk. So how to acquire the wine...?

Anyone feel like running over a bottle or two for lunch? :)

Just in time for Christmas, it snowed! Granted, the rain is washing it away as I type, but when I woke up this morning, the world was frosted with confectioner's sugar and I felt very, very Christmasy. Vancouver practically never gets snow on Christmas.

Mr. Turkey Update: He's been in my fridge for over 24 hours now and he's still hard as a rock. Looks like I'll be using the cold water method after all.

K, I got my Christmas shopping almost finished today. I just have to head to Home Depot for a few more tidbits, then I'll be done! I mistakenly wore my sexy boots to the mall today though, and tore up my feet in the three hours I spent walking end to end and back again. On the way home I stopped at Safeway and picked up Mr. Turkey Lurkey for Sunday's dinner. He's 6.5kg, which is the perfect size for four people at dinner and then leftovers. For the first time ever, I bought him early enough to thaw him properly in the fridge without resorting to the cold water in the sink method.

I'm getting excited about Christmas! It took a while, but I'm getting there!

new bookshelves so I can finally unpack my boxes of books
new bedsheets and duvet
a food processor
stoneware for my casseroles
a temperature controlled slow cooker
a computer chair

I promise I will leave home-made cookies with the milk this year. No Safeway baked goods for my Santa!

Ok, I've been home for a week now. There's no excuse to not be caught up.

I never really noticed how dark Vancouver gets during the winter. Sure, it's grey and rainy, but even on clear days, the amount of sunlight we get is pretty pathetic. No wonder people get Seasonal Affective Disorder here. Hmm.. maybe I can get a scrip for that. "Please excuse Elli from work. I have instructed her to take two weeks in Mexico twice a year to cure S.A.D." I'm guessing that wouldn't really fly, though. To see a current snapshot of Vancouver, check out katkam.ca. It's a webcam that's been running for ten years now, and is my link to home whenever I'm away.

I'm not feeling very Christmasy this year. We haven't got the tree up. It's a fake one, and it's been sitting in a box in our hallway for three days now, but we keep putting off erecting it. At least our house has Christmas lights on the outside now, so we don't look totally like Grinches. My family's Christmas dinner was on Friday (it's always halfway through the month for some reason) and it wasn't nearly as pleasant as previous dinners have been. I really have nothing to say to my sis at the moment, and my dad seems to have a hate on for my boyfriend, so it was a bit tense. Ugh, drama. I really only went to see my grandmother and my mother. I think I need to talk to them both more often. Grandma lives alone now and I think she might get lonely at times, even though she has quite an active social life. Come to think of it, my mother is in the same boat. She lives alone and her dog just died a few months ago, so it's just her and the cat now. My mom, the cat lady. I should have invited her over for turkey on the 23rd instead of my man's sister and her boyfriend. Dangit.

See how much stress the holidays cause? Sheesh!

This has been Elli's best Christmas ever! There was no family drama, no undue stress, my shopping got done on time, everything got wrapped, everyone was happy or appeared to be happy with their gifts from me, and I made two turkey dinners with much success!

My best present that I got is something I've wanted ever since I first moved out of my mom's house: a nice set of pots and pans! It's one of those things that I've never been able to justify putting a priority on, but something I always wanted. Well I finally got them! Yay!

They're a Lagostina "Windsor" set and I'm soooo happy with them! Amazing tools for Elli's kitchen. :)


So what did you all get?