liveblogging Christmas Eve day

GB’s awesome and uber-cool aunt (the one who’s only a few years older than GB & me) guided me through the making of salsa. While all I did was chop tomatoes and onions at her direction (and watch while she added everything else), she’s now calling it “Luckybuzz’s salsa,” which makes me happy.

I also assisted with the making of the guacamole (i.e., the taste-testing part). Yum. Dinner tonight is a Mexican buffet, apparently.

Apparently, also, I will be getting back to Weight Watchers right after Christmas. I’d planned to stick with it and to try to work out here–and I did go for a small walk, and I’ll go for another later. But as far as not eating what’s here to eat? I think that’s not going to work out. Here, at GB’s family’s, the holiday is about consuming, and sharing (food, as well as all those less-tangible emotional things), and gratitude for abundance–of all sorts. I am so not going to grinch that up. I keep telling myself that two days (today and tomorrow) eating more than usual is not going to completely screw up my newfound health.

Plus, they’re making eggnog with rum right now, and I would have to be one antisocial bastard to turn that down.

One of the Small Blond Cousins is playing the piano–slow, off-key versions of Christmas songs. It’s sweet. Then again, it’s also early in the visit.

There’s a possibility that we may be graced by the presence of one of my favorite bloggers tonight! I’m keeping my fingers crossed…could we really be so lucky? I’ll keep y’all posted.

Our camera completely, irreversibly died yesterday afternoon, so we ended up going out this afternoon to try to replace it. GB’s mom generously fronted us the cash for a new one; we got a really good deal on it, so I feel less bad about that. It takes pretty nice photos, though I’m still trying to figure out all the settings. Here’s a picture of the nativity scene, which apparently has some new and exotic animal visitors this year: