Christmas in Los Angeles

Christmas Day is a flurry of activity. Husband's up at 6am (whaaaat?!) excited to open presents, and for me to open my gift from him.

I drag myself out of bed - Christmas Eve was a loooong day at work, and I'm especially surprised to find Husband so spritely since he had an equally long day spent shopping for all the Christmas feast
ingredients, and assembled our new Ikea bed frame, bed side tables and dining table all by himself! Madness.

But it's Christmas, and presents must be opened, and they do not disappoint. (I got the new iPhone 5, eeeeek!)

Soon enough it was time to start prepping the food (you can see our trial run here), clean the apartment and wait for our guests to arrive. The rest of the afternoon flew by - avo ritz starters, the biggest roast feast for lunch, then a fiery round of Dirty Santa, with much dice-rolling and present-thievery, followed by a mammoth game of Monopoly (four hours in and I couldn't take the pressure - I became the most charitable player ever, and gave everything away), and then we ate cheese, drank and laughed, and ate mushy apple crumble for dessert, to finally round up our long day of eating.

But I missed home A LOT. Even with all that fun going on - I wanted the kind of fun that a family Christmas brings. Ah well - I guess you can't have everything on a big adventure.