Such a perfect Christmas!

Oh gosh, what a great day!

At noon I had the chicken noodle-vegetable soup on the stove, low heat, just simmering the flavors. Fresh rolls were baked and waiting. A pot of coffee was ready, so I poured a cup and sat down to read a while as I waited for my guests to arrive. I read a few pages while I sipped my coffee and around 12:30, the arrivals began. It was a small group just six of us, and by 1:00 we were chowing down on all kinds of nibbles, candy and cookies, dips and chips, a delicious humus, cheese balls and several scrumptious breads and crackers, and everything was excellent! We had some wine to go with the delicious snacks, and it became a meal, not just snacks.

Once we sated our initial hunger, we sat down to play some games. Trivial Pursuit was picked, a favorite of mine. I have two versions, The Genius edition and the Baby Boomer edition. We started with the Genius cards, and when some saw the word "genius" they panicked! LOL! I personally think it is the easier of the two. We played in three teams of two per team, and my partner, Zoë and I won that one. Rather easily, if I do say so! ahem!

Then we debated about a different game but several wanted to try the Baby Boomers version. I'm slightly pre-Baby Boomer, and I don't care for that one, personally. No, Zoë and I didn't win, but we were just one behind the winners. The winners who were just lucky at guessing, I might add!  LOL!

While we were playing games, Allan dropped by on his way home from work. He joined us in the eating, but just watched us and laughed at our antics rather than playing with us. He is very good at Trivial Pursuit, BTW. I remember that from long ago. Smart dude!

While we played the second round, we had the soup, and it was excellent, if I do say so. I made it with big chunky veggies, lots of herbs and big, fat egg noodles. I was planning to make homemade noodles, but yesterday I remembered how hard it is to roll out the very stiff dough, and I didn't want to do the work, to be honest. I bought the frozen kind. They're almost as good as homemade.  Anyway, the soup was yummy.

This is the best kind of celebration, in my opinion. It was very relaxing, lots of laughter and fun, no stress at all, no tradition to get wonky over. Several, if not all, of my guests feel as I do about the commercial aspects of the holiday, and it was nice to have no gifting, no drama, no emotional roller coasters; just good company and good food and happy times. Perfecto!

Around 6:30 everyone started getting ready to leave. I had the dishwasher loaded in just a few minutes and poured a glass of eggnog to sit down and enjoy with my book. Ahhhhhhhh. Nice day. Very nice day, indeed.

And how was your day?