White Christmas

This is somewhat of a double post: Christmas, and the blizzard.

My Christmas celebrations followed the same pattern as last year's. On Christmas Eve some friends gathered at Jimmy's place for a potluck dinner. I cooked Mussel and Sausage Soup, which turned out quite well. There were several other dishes, mostly Chinese influenced.

The five of us ate, chatted and watched Star Wars, which most of us had not seen. I was greatly amused when Darth Vader walked onto the screen and Jimmy said "I think this character is quite famous".

After the movie, we played several games of Fluxx, the same game we played last Christmas. Rounds lasted until 2 in the morning, when we decided to stop, because nothing good happens after 2am.

I headed home and got six and a half hours of sleep before getting up to start making lunch. I prepared the same meal as last year, although only three salads instead of four because when I bought ingredients I was only expecting Jimmy to join me for lunch. It turned out that two other friends from the Christmas Eve party could also make it, so we had a nice little gathering.

I had a break from cooking when I went to Christmas Mass at the church two blocks west of my house. The church was very red: poinsettias aplenty, and people seemed to be dressed in red as well (did I misread the invitation??).

Once people arrived, we ate lots of turkey and salads and then played Guillotine, a game sent to me by my parents as a Christmas gift. We followed that with another round of Fluxx, then chatted about our experiences growing up and moving to different countries (none of us was born in America).

I was rather tired after a long day preparing and partying, but another chat with my parents perked me up.

On Boxing Day I went to Mass at the church two blocks north of my house (there is a third church 10 minutes' walk away, but that's a little far for me!). The congregation was somewhat older: unlike the previous day, I was the youngest in the congregation, probably by thirty years.

It was snowing lightly in the morning and I had (have) a cold, so I planned a very lazy day, watching some american football (actually, this could easily have been my plan anyway). I turned the TV on to find the pregame show and discovered multiple-channel weather programs. They were talking about the "blizzard of 2010" which was just beginning. A blizzard warning was declared from midday Sunday until 6pm Monday, and the Boston area was to expect around 15 inches of snow as well as strong winds.

I can tell you that, to someone staying put in a house, a blizzard doesn't mean all that much (I guess things would have been very different had electricity or some other utility been disrupted, but there were no such problems). The snow fell, surprisingly slowly but inexorably, and the wind blew, and my life went on as normal. Admittedly, the weather thwarted my plan of watching three straight NFL games (so I played a little of my own on the computer), but that was as far as it went. I did discover that the sky is light during a snowstorm at full moon.

The next day I woke to 18 inches of snow outside. MIT was closed, which I took as a good reason to stay home, take it easy again, and get over my cold. I did wander outside to take these three pictures (the first one is from my first floor - second floor in Americanspeak - window).





Rather messy, and kind of cold, but not as exciting as those from warmer climes imagine.

Unfortunately I felt worse rather than better as the day progressed: not terrible, just runny nose, watery eye and generally tired, so I took today off as well. I think it was a good move, as I'm feeling well rested and much better this evening.