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And it's over. A month of preparation, decoration, planning, baking, shopping, climaxes in a day of glorious, shameless, joyous consumption and excess. I love Christmas.

This was a good one; I enjoyed the company, the gifts were great, the food all turned out perfectly. I think there was too much food, which is truly praising with faint damnation.

We had leek and salmon frittata for breakfast, courtesy of Morgan and Erik. While it was cooking we opened stockings; I got a toy car and a tube of Burt's Bees Diaper Ointment (which I love because it doesn't smell of cod liver oil). And an apple and an orange, which I put in the bottom of each stocking for tradition's sake. We all kind of made fun of the fruit, but Morg and Erik took their fruit home, and this morning I was really grateful to eat the apple as an antidote to all the heavy stuff we ate yesterday. A peace offering to my stomach, if you will.

After brunch we opened presents, and then went out to visit Morgan's best friend and her family. They really get into the, shall we say, commercial aspects of Christmas -- massive quantities of gifts, skis and things. I had a moment there where I felt like a freak for wanting to reduce the number of gifts we exchange, because they seemed so happy to have given and gotten so many things, but then I remembered how miserable it makes me, the pressure to get the perfect gift, the sense of obligation, the worry that the gifts aren't good or plentiful enough, together with the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach wondering how we're going to afford it all. I don't know if Morgan's friends feel any of that, but if they don't, more power to them -- I do.

I called my parents when we got home; I was worried that they would be unhappy with the shortage of gifts, but they didn't say anything about it at all. They were very happy; they had been for Chinese food, and the previous night had been to visit a lady down the street, and had met up with this Russian guy they're becoming friends with. Pretty lively folks.

Then I realized that I missed buying them presents, even if they didn't miss getting them. I love picking out things I think they'd like, feeling like I'm spoiling them, thinking of how they will use the things I buy, hearing their reaction when I call them on Christmas Day. I don't miss the last minute rush and expense, so I have come up with a strategy for next year. I have put in my daytimer a to-do item, in the middle of each month, to buy a gift for my parents for Christmas. That way the expense is spread out, I have plenty of time to think of things, and I'll be able to get them lots of stuff.

I called my brother Dave too; he's in Vancouver and has decided it's a miserable place full of miserable people. He hates his job and his company. But he seemed pretty happy when I called, for all that. He didn't seem depressed.

After I'd called the family, I put together Delphine's new push toy, and then we started cooking dinner. It was a surprisingly simple meal, but voluminous, and it turned out well.

After dinner we couldn't really move. Morgan headed home (Erik having left earlier to visit his family) and Blake and I settled in to watch extras on The Two Towers DVD. I quickly fell asleep on the couch, then finally stumbled to bed with Delphine.

Today was great; I love having Blake here, and we have seemingly nothing to do. We went up to What A Bagel for breakfast, and then I bought some birthday presents for Morgan (a sassy reversible hat and a blue-beaded necklace), soothers for Delphine, other bits and pieces. We came home, did some housework, wrapped the presents, made chili with leftover beef, played with Delphine, watched more extras, and worked on a crossword. A perfect day, and the first of ten more like it.

I was serious about the too much food complaint up there. I had 3300 calories yesterday, and that's fine; I knew I was going to eat a whole lot and it would be just one day. I worked out that if I eat 1950 calories a day for the next seven days it will make up for Christmas day and bring my average back down to 2200.

The problem is that today we have leftover beef, leftover potatoes and Yorkshire pudding, leftover chocolates, leftover gingerbread and pfeffernusse and Christmas pudding, brandy butter and whipped cream. Some of it can go in the freezer but some of it can't, so the extra calories leak over onto the next few days, making it that much harder to get down to 1950. I wish I were clever enough to make and buy exactly enough food for Christmas Day and maybe one day of leftovers, and that's it.

Ah well. It's all about the one month average, right?

Oh, incidentally, tomorrow I'm moving my caloric intake goal down to 2100, and I expect I will bring it down by 100 calories each month until I get to 1700 in May. I think my goal will be to get between 1500 and 1700 calories a day, so the average is around 1600. I'm quite excited about that. Think how thin I will be! Think of the money I will save!