I'm here temporarily alone.. for 1-2 hrs., after our Christmas Eve annual dinner at home my partner has gone off to walk with his daughter in this snow to near her apt. tonight since some public transit are disabled abit. He wanted to help haul back some of her presents.

We place emphasis on Christmas Eve for dinner and opening presents.

We had a good time. I was a little amazed he spent a pretty penny to buy a gourmet chocolate cake (it's beautiful executed in Iron Chef high class standard) and I am not kiddin' you it is quality baking. The pastry chef is from Germany and trained there. However I certainly cannot dispute the reasons why he did this.

I'm sure he was thinking of his mother who died recently since he also bought some German ginger cookies (made in Germany), marzipan from Austria (or Germany) for his daughter also.

We were all giggling and guffawing abit when we all opened our presents from his son/grandson and his daughter-in-law: always an identical decorated gift. Each of us got mousepad with hand-painted design by the child. Another year it was aprons that were each personalized..

His daughter-in-law is highly organized and "efficient" in their gift-buying for family members.