Food! Glorious Food! And that was just my Christmas...

Well, I am stuffed! As for most people the last few days have been about culinary indulgence.  Christmas Eve I do okay because our family's tradition of Oyster Stew is not one I over indulge in (I eat my bowlful - it is not Christmas without the taste of it).  I did do some damage to many a cookie, however.  On Christmas Day I am the meal preparer and we have whoever is in town over for the big turkey dinner.  Mark asked me about making 'extra' stuffing - to which I replied - "It doesn't matter how much you make, there is never any 'extra' stuffing".  And I was right.  I made a tonne of it and it was all gone. So I told him I would make him more a few days afterwards to compensate - the bread is currently drying right now. We had a group of 11 this year.  Gibson had probably the best time this year.  He had so much fun with all the cousins and before they came on Tuesday, he kept asking "When are the people coming?!?!" The meal turned out very well - although I clearly do not know how to thaw a turkey.  Mark had to do some cold water baths until the wee hours of the morning to make sure we had a nice thawed but still cold bird in the morning!

I skipped any real action on Boxing Day.  I always look at the piles of stuff under the tree and think "what more could I want?"  I tend to have a hard time when people ask me what I want because I don't really need anything.  So the idea of boxing day seems like over-kill.  Plus, I don't like crowds. As a parent I am finding it a bit hard to cope with this season of excess.  It's hard to make your kids appreciate what they have when there is simply so much of it. The starving kids in Africa story only goes so far. It's also hard to explain why we think an 11 year old doesn't need an iPod Touch when his younger cousin gets an iPad. In his eyes, he feels either deprived or punished.  The latter is sad, because he has been a really good kid this year and that is not why we aren't getting it. The former is sad because we have so much stuff.  Sigh, again. I'm not going to give too much more thought to it.  I am not caving and getting the iPod, and have no problem stating why, but it's a challenge.

I did check out Oliver! at Festival Place with Gibson last night.  It was great to see my friends onstage. I did the show many (read: about 20) years ago in Fort McMurray and although I am not sure how good the show was, it was one of my most favorite theatrical experiences. It's where I met Wanda and where Wanda and AM and I really bonded. The grown-ups in the show have a lot of time backstage together and boy-o-boy we were silly.  So, it was nice to see the show from the other side.  I realized that when doing the show myself I hadn't paid much attention to the play as a whole.  Gibson commented that he thought there were a lot of horrible people in Oliver's London.  He enjoyed it, but it was a bit long for him so he spent some time at the end of the show snuggled up to me snoozing. I thought that Nadine Veroba, as Nancy, was phenomenal.  Yes, I know her. She was Claudia in Nine and is the only person to ever make me cry during an audition and she is lovely to work with, but I make this assessment of her from an objective stand point.  There is something about her that is electric and her singing - wowsers! There were many other nice things about this production.  I was glad to have caught it.

Oliver! marked my 60th show this year that I either saw or was involved in.  It would be more if I counted each Fringe show I went to, but I count the days I went to Fringe instead. I had a goal of 40 so I am very pleased with the number.  That's an average of 5 shows per month.  Pretty good! I will make a new goal for 2013 and it will be closer to the 60 number. I may not win another fabulous ticket prize though, so I am not sure I will be able to match it. We shall see.