Stirred

I know I'm a few days behind on the Christmas wrap up post. Here goes. It was a lovely, and as always with my large family, exhausting holiday season. While I enjoy the Christmas season lasting a good 6 weeks or so, the week of Christmas can really take it out of me with so much to see and do. I received many wonderful gifts and want to point out a few of my favorites, some expected and some less so. I'll start with the book Twilight. While I'm always open to reading some good teenage girl fiction (note: Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series is my favorite) the idea of vampire fiction wasn't necessarily something I'd run out to get. When I received it as a Christmas present from Alex and Sandy though, I was ready to give it a chance. And so glad I did! I couldn't believe how sucked in a I got so quickly. (Did you catch my little vampire joke - sucked in? Get it?) It was remarkable and I could barely put it down. In fact, I only did twice. Once to go to bed one night, and once to go to Target and buy the sequel so I didn't have to wait a second when the first book ended to start the next one. I had no idea I'd be so captivated by this story. I also totally have a crush on Edward the vampire. He's intense.

Next up in favorite gift category was one I was really looking forward to, and that is my electric toothbrush. I've wanted one for years and would never bring myself to buy one. I love that it beeps every 30 second to tell me to move it around my mouth, I love that it shuts off automatically after 2 minutes, I love that it has the little sanitizer. It's a different feeling than regular toothbrushing, which is so vigorous. This is more suble with the pulsing bristles, but I'm pretty sure my teeth are getting clean, and that's all that matters.

Lastly, I'm thrilled to have some new cooking tools! My immersion blender and stock pot will be great to make yummy winter soups. I am so excited to have the big pot that I'll be able to easily fit corn on the cob or big batches of spaghetti in. And, it has that built in strainer which I'm more excited about than may be normal.

All in all, it was a wonderful Christmas with many generous and thoughtful friends and family sharing it with us.