What a wonderful Christmas we had

It truly was a terrific Christmas Day.

I actually slept 'til about 5:30am (record late for me) and tried my darndest to wake John -- sometimes it takes a while.

I turned on the coffee as I made my way to my sanctuary to collect our stockings, which were chock-a-block full of goodies!

By the time I got back to the bedroom with the stockings, John was suitably awake and sitting up, waiting for the onslaught.

We emptied our stockings and then we each pretended that we were being patient about moving into the sanctuary to find out what else Santa may have left for us.

Eventually, one of us (I don't recall which) simply said the words, "Coffee must be ready by now," and we were both out of there like rockets.

We opened our gifts, of which there were many, and then got ready to go into the big city to join my little chickadee and her family for our traditional breakfast.

The drive to the city was uneventful; practically no other cars on the road, and thankfully, no snowstorm to delay us.

My beautiful boy was already splayed out on the carpet building his beloved Lego but he broke from doing that long enough to give us hugs and kisses and to show us all his gifts.

Breakfast was its usual delicious: waffles (with three different toppings from which to choose) plus whipped cream; sausages; bacon; coffee; juice (with champagne of course for the requisite Christmas cheer).  Absolutely scrumptious!

Then we opened gifts again.

Later, when we left MLC's place, we stopped at my good friend LC's for a quick visit with her.  We didn't stay long because we wanted to get home to get our dinner started.

This year, for the first time, we actually cooked a full-course Christmas dinner, with all the trimmings -- for just the two of us.

Of course, we didn't cook a turkey -- instead we cooked one of our home-grown chickens.

And it was delicious!

But the topper on the whole day was the e-mail I received from MLC this morning, which read:  "Marcus told us last night that if all he had got for Christmas was the watch he would have been happy. "

Now that just warmed my heart to no end.

The watch was from his Grandma and Grandpa!