I was resting...

Tonight before going to bed I decided to post some photos of what I have been up to over the holidays.... As I am tired from last night out (Moscow city ballet) this is more of a photo post... Firstly we got our tree on Christmas Eve as a gift! I love the tradition of decorating the tree, as its roots are in Scandinavian pagan traditions, they used to decorate all the trees for Yule season, later in Venice the glass makers decided to put the balls that were meant to be glasses, but did not quite work out on the trees, the tradition as we all know caught on and spread around the world.

This year our tree is the best looking ever, not the tree itself, but the decorations, they are colour coordinated, starting from identical balls ending with tinsel. I was very pleased with it and all the imperfections of the tree just show, how truly beautiful natural things are...

As we had to chop some branches away I did not want to waste them, and because we have two boxer dogs I couldn't afford to leave the presents under the tree over night, so instead a Yule season chest of drawers was created...

I wanted the whole apartment (which is only two rooms anyway) to feel Christmaseeeeeee! So we had the leftover branches decorated for the bedroom too. Yes I know those candle holders made from wine bottles are tacky, but they are mine, I made them and I love them, so bite your tongue and don't say anything about those cheap Italian restaurants...

On Christmas day or winter solstice, Graham and I, had lamb. Every year we have different food on Yule, so far we had six Yules together and... Lithuanian food 1st year, English food (TURKEY) 2nd year, almost English food (goose) 3rd year, French food (Seafood, foie gras, snails et cetera) 4th year, chicken (as we were broke) 5th year and lamb with all the English trimmings, as well as all the elements we collected from our travels in different countries on 6th year...

Lithuanian cake, English mince pies (brought from Vilnius especially for Yule), English Christmas pudding (very pagan! and very small and awfully sweet too), orange jelly kind of thing filled chocolates, French chocolates, black chocolate, and this is just a few of the deserts that were prepared for Yule this year!
It was and still is so much fun enjoying ourselves, but I have to go to work tomorrow so I'm off to bed now. More news, about the surprises coming next year, hopefully tomorrow!