I slept in till noonish. Filled up the gas tank and got the car washed. By the time I got to the supermarket, breakfat had worn off. And oh boy did the bill show it. And the supermarket was PACKED!

Bosses wife responded, and asked if I could bring some pre-meal healthy munchies. So I picked up veggie & fruit platters.

Meara, I say the best part of snow and rain storms is snuggling with the one you love. So that makes it sound like you got a great Xmas going on over there.

I'm reading about old Christmas traditions. Pre-Victorian Christmas seems like it was very drunk.

Sounds like the pre-victorians had it right.

I think that my favorite (possibly because it's the only one I've read about tonight that I've never heard of before) is that people would go out to the apple orchards, drink cider, and sing songs to the trees so that the apple harvest would be good the next year.

D got home, I told him about the washer. He checked it- it seems to be working fine.

Perfect! That means D can do your laundry for you! (Spidey is gonna kill me!)

go out to the apple orchards, drink cider, and sing songs to the trees so that the apple harvest would be good the next year.

This sounds rather chilly, at Christmas. Unless it was HOT cider. Hot alcoholic cider? Hmm. Maybe hot cider with rum? I dunno about this plan...

The cider was definitely alcoholic. I'm not sure about hot, but that seems reasonable.

Also, I found an account from Colonial Massachusetts of some young men who went to the home of a man known to make pear cider and demanded some. When he wouldn't give them any, then just sat themselves down and stayed there, singing songs. When he still wouldn't give him any, they beat up his son. And this was reported as if it were just a slightly more extreme example of what could be expected every Christmas. Apparently Nantucket was known for its especially raucous Christmas celebrations -- being way out on the island, they weren't as much under the control of the religious authorities who'd banned Christmas celebrations.

We exchanged gifts with Mom and Stepdad tonight since we won't see them tomorrow, and then came home and exchanged gifts with each other since it was after midnight. I'm so spoiled. Now sleep. Tomorrow more wrapping and baking.

Merry Christmas to all the Christmasy peeps. Home from a very pleasant Christmas eve with my family in Bonita Springs. Unwinding from the trip home with a glass of wine. Need to think about sleeping real soon.

Drinking cider and singing to trees sounds fun to me. We sang a lot on the 2-1/2 hour trip home. Mostly Christmas songs along with the radio, but there were a few detours to Rap depending on who ruled the radio.