Christmas Boxing

Jeni and I have been here in Scarborough at a very lavish vacation rental called the "chalet" with Jeni's uncle and her cousins and cousins' families. There is still snow here on the ground from earlier this week, and its a bit tricky walking on the now icy sidewalks. Christmas morning was relaxing and warm. Jeni's cousin, Ben's two kids are only 2 and 3, so they are still not quite familiar with Christmas. But the presents of course are very exciting to them! After a humongous Christmas feast followed by a cheese course and dessert course with plenty of wine, port and coffee to accompany it, we all played Mexican Train dominoes for 4 hours! At midnight we finally went to bed.

Today we walked into the old town of Scarborough to watch the Boxing Day raft races, which none of us have any idea what they are about or why they started. But it was pretty entertaining regardless. It was just me, Jeni, her uncle, her cousin and his girlfriend today because her other cousin and his wife took their kids to visit her parents for the day. So after walking around the town and slipping on ice, Jeni's uncle, Jon, treated us to a huge lunch of fish and chips with mushy peas and a pint of beer. Afterwards we spent about an hour or so trying to find a market that was open so we could get some more supplies for dinner. Once back at the house, we poured the tea and dealt the cards and chips to play a long game of Texas Hold'em.

As I write this now, dinner is being prepared. It smells lovely in here. The leftover turkey is being transformed into turkey pie. And there's homemade trifle for dessert. It would be so uber English if something other that James Brown's "Living in America" were playing :)