X-mas holiday happiness

This year, due to the fact that X-mas New Year's Eves fall on Mondays, we're experiencing 2-week period of eating and drinking (desperately need a proper diet to make myself presentable again) and above all togetherness.

This year we fought for our right to spend our time as we wish at Christmas and celebrated Christmas Eve with both our families together but refused to be embellishments at our parents' X-mas dinners. We stayed at home and  got up when we wanted, wore what we wanted, swapped Polish fatty and bland dishes for roast lamb, napped after dinner while the boys played Cbeebies Christmas Calendar games.

With temperatures well above zero all the snow turned into lakes of water which successfully prevented us from poking our noses out.

This holiday time we introduced our sons to the world of adventure games. We used the projector to display the games on the wall so that everyone could participate. We picked Neverhood and Machinarium. The little guys got very much involved in saving the world of plasticine and rescuing robot girlfriends (whom they innocently believed to be sisters). They partucularly enjoyed making Klayman burp countless numbers of time, and learned how to croak like a plasticine crow which they willingly demonstrate on all occassions.

We watched a couple of films after we'd managed to put the little rascals to beds. As usual our X-mas started with Love Actually which in our opinions is the best Christmas film ever. We've had the DVD for years but somehow we never bothered to see the extras. This time we did and thought we'd love to see director's cut version of the film even if it was 4 hours long.

We also saw an episode of Modern Family and sank completely in. Brilliant series and so positive and warm. The episode about cancelling X-mas seemed so appropriate!

Having so much free time to enjoy we indulged in our favourite activity, alcohol tasting. We tested a wide variety of beers from local breweries, cherry and strawberry vodka from Gruba Pszczolka a couple of gins and whiskeys. One of our favourites turned out to be beer brewed according to a 500-year-old Finnish recipe. Damn strong but very deceptive cause you don't notice how strong it is when drinking. Half a pint made me seriously drunk, I don't even want to think what would have happened if Kuba had more. There's no chance of getting addicted, though, cause it's a limited edition produced especially for the end of the world.  

We welcomed the New Year accompanied by our son Adam, who refused to go to sleep before midnight, and two bottles of M&S gin. We woke Mikolaj up to show him the fireworks but he preferred to return to bed. Nothing, really nothing can wake him up at night!

Then Adam and Asia dropped by on their way home to wish us Happy New Year. This sounds like a quiet kind of night, two parents staying at home with their kids. Actually, it was a very enjoyable night with all versions of Pulp Common People we could find on YouTube, fireworks from London, Sloe Gin on the rocks, best friends coming over with a surprise visit and hardly any hangover in the morning. 

The night once again proved one important thing about us: all we need to have fun is to have each other (and a drop of Sloe Gin perhaps).

Today's evening was a cherry on top of a cupcake. We met at Anka's place to eat up the leftovers from her party but in fact it was yet another lovely evening with friends and our wonderful host. 

This is gonna be a good year, I feel!