One of my classic take-to gifts in December is home-made sugar-coated almonds. I also make them for ourselves,of course, as well as to spoil whoever visits us during the holidays. The recipe is easy, the secret lies in stirring. And we usually do it together, so that my husband can take over when my arm starts hurting. 😉
I hope you had a lovely Christmas Eve and that Santa was good to all of you out there. We had an amazing day, ate a lot of wonderful food and got cuddles galore from our pets. We had a walk after our nap and although “only” minus 5, it was freezing cold out there! Luckily we could slide on a frozen lake for a bit of fun and Sammy was in heaven!
For dinner we had lobster mayo (and no, I didn´t kill the poor thing myself, it came already boiled!), duck breast with Brussel sprouts, orange sauce, my famous mashed potatoes and a quick chocolate mousse for desert. We never got around to the desert, way too stuffed by then! I´ll be sure to post a couple of posts on Christmas food the coming days.
This year we´re celebrating Christmas in the family, meaning the two of us and our pets. We haven´t actually stayed at home without working or being invited at some other people´s house before, so this is a new experience, but what a lovely one! We woke up early enough and spent a couple of hours drinking coffee, doing nothing and just dragging ourselves around the house (my most favorite activity!). Then V went out to walk Sammy and bought the last ingredients for the orange sauce we´ll make for the duck breast this evening. Meanwhile I set the table, lit the candles, boiled some eggs and took out the Prosecco bottle from the fridge. We dug in, I suggested he opened his present, so he could wear it around and feel comfortable, he loved it and so we toasted for a better year next year. After drinking a bottle of prosecco and a couple of weissbier, watching old Disney cartoons and petting Beo, V and Sam had a nap, while I edited some pictures.(NERD!) I can feel sleep on my eyelashes now, my time to take a nap. I wish you a merry merry Christmas!;-)
I think I´ve seen too many American Christmas movies and that I´m totally brainwashed when it comes to Christmas. So much expectations, so much preparation, it´s crazy! I´m dreaming of spending Christmas in a beautiful cabin in winter wonderland. We´ve already decided to celebrate next year´s holidays in Maramures, Romania, but I´m also hoping for a place of our own a bit nearer. Meanwhile, I need to spend less money on clothes and interior decoration and get a driving license and a car. This cabin would make us and Sammy very, very happy! What do you think?
Although I didn´t work a day last week and only a couple of hours this morning, today is my first official holiday. I can finally unwind, do the rest of the preparations and start enjoying myself. Vuong bought the tree and set it up yesterday, we were able to find one of the decoration boxes (out of two), I managed to make some cookies and will bake some more today. I also bought the last gifts and will make some chutney and sugar coated almonds as go-to gifts. 😉
It snowed a tiny bit yesterday and although it turned the sidewalks slippery, it also means the ground is not entirely bare. 😉 White Christmas this year, too! A couple of trips to the woods with Sam are mandatory and so is ice-skating in the city center, if it´s open for renting skates.
Yesterday we celebrated Christmas with our friends Franck and Marion and his kids. We had a lavish brunch of yummy pancakes, scrambled eggs, ham and all the cheese and marmalades you could think of, followed by the gift-opening session where Sam gets to tear the paper once the wrapping comes off. 😉 It was a lot of fun and we felt like being with our second family. What else would you call very good friends, if not family?:-) On our way back, we had a stroll in the Sankthanshaugen park with Sam and it was delightful! All the pretty lights, the snow and the majestic buildings, plus people playing with their children and dogs in the snow..
In the evening I saw “Boyhood” with a friend at the cinema. What a fantastic movie! I´ll write a review soon, but you need to see it if you have the chance! Afterwards we had a chat over a couple of beers and a yummy pizza at Hell´s Kitchen, absolutely recommended.;-)
I hope you enjoy my pictures and that they bring you in the mood for Christmas. 😉
We´re off to Oslo in just 2 hours and while waiting in the lounge for the time to pass with coffee and biscuits (we´ve already had a walk and it´s freezing cold out there!), I thought I´d let you know what we´ve been up to these days. We had so many plans, we´d do things right this time (meaning going dog sledging and maybe cross country skiing), but then we remembered we had Sam with us, that the temperatures were really low and that this was a holiday, after all. And what I love about holidays is that I can do what I feel like and not what´s expected of me, not even by my own self. Rest, eat when I´m hungry, sleep when I´m tired, take a walk, go shopping for local produce, have a glass of wine, cuddle with Sam, read a book.
We´re in Røros with Sam for a Christmas getaway and it´s a winter wonderland! The weather is perfect-wind-still and lots of snow, though a bit cold for our taste (-27 C yesterday and only -16 today). 😉 Eating lots of good food and drinking local beer or mulled wine, exploring the area on foot (had to buy wool underwear today!) and shopping for small gifts. Yesterday we were lucky enough to even attend a Christmas concert in church. Today we have rain deer on the menu!;-) 
I´m starting to get old- if I´m too active in the weekends, I need an extra day off. 😉 This weekend was particularly rough: drinks and dinner with an awesome couple from Australia on Friday evening, Christmas market with Sammy and friends, dinner at friends´house later on and an unplanned party at our house and that was just Saturday. Yesterday we had pancake breakfast with our other friends who stayed the night, did some washing up afterwards and saw the Hobbit at the cinema in the afternoon. So today I was dead: When the alarm rang I thought it must be Sunday morning! Fortunately there isn´t lots to do at work this time of the year, so I was able to cut myself some slack and take Sammy to the woods. 😉 It´s been so dark lately anyway and I haven´t felt like getting out of the house, so the streak of sunshine I could spot made me feel besides myself with joy! And because we were in luck, we got a friend to meet us at Frogneseteren, the restaurant on top of the mountain. I and Sammy took the subway half the way and walked the rest. I had cream porridge and Christmas soda, my friend had a Danish and we both walked back with our lattes. 😉 I fell on the ice and almost chipped the camera, but the latte only spilled a bit. 😉 haha! Enjoy the pictures!
As I might have mentioned before, I grew up with my grandma. My parents lived in the same city and would eat dinner with us everyday, help us with our homework and then go home. We would spend the weekends together. I always found that difficult and I still do. But that´s a story for another day.
Today I wanted to tell you a funny story from back when I was 10 years old. My mum reminded me of it, I had completely forgotten. You see, my grandma had a friend, Madam Diaconu, and she was a stylish lady. Or at least wannabe stylish- she would wear a wig, black or red pearls and red lipstick. And even though I didn´t like her much, I must have admired her charms ´cause my mother “caught” me coming back from school with a hideous old-lady pearl string on top of my patterned sweater. She laughed so hard when she reminisced that I thought she´d choke! Haha! I can picture myself, the wannabe diva, too young to be bad-taste and too old to be cute! haha! Unfortunately I don´t have a picture close by, so I´ll give you this cutie instead.
Source: http://robinsilcockgames.blogspot.no
Ain´t it swell? Not enough that I´m on medication for my major depression, but I´ve contracted a minor one, as well! Haha! I can´t do anything else, but laugh! My psychologist called it a “seasonal affective disorder”, caused by the lack of sun and the cold. It´s not that I hadn´t heard if it or anything, I was just unaware you could have a depression within another depression. Haha! All I feel like doing is sleeping and getting cosy in my pjs. Walking Sam seems an ordeal, so is everything else I´m not bound to do, so unless it´s work, or dinner and drinks, you can´t get me outside the house if you pull me by the hair!;-)
Stories and Anecdotes by Sharron Little Burnett
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