oloriel | On the seventh day of Christmas/ my true love gave to me...

... seven sons of Fëanor, six tyeller of Tengwar, fiiiiive Istariiii; four Elven kindreds, three Silmarils, two shiny Trees, and One Ring to ruuuule them aaaaall-- *shot*

I've been strangely lazy as far as updating my lj is concerned these last days, so the post-Christmas post has had to wait until today. And as I'm still lazy and don't want to recount three days of celebrating, I'll just post some photos with commentary. Click on the small pics to be linked to larger ones, as usual.

This is how it began......and this is how it ended.

Dec 24th

Our tree!

Hmmmm, fondue. The photo can't do it justice.

Kinslaying dessert of d00m.
(It's only innocent straciatella cream with cocoa and oranges. I swear.)

Dec 25th

My parents' tree

Ricardo and Sabrina (two of my lovely cousins, and my brother's and my godchild, respectively)

... do we have to eat again?
(from left to right: Jörg, my aunt Karin (the one with the five sons), my dad, my uncle Gerhard (the one with the annoying wife and the two daughters), my aunt Beate (said annoying wife), and my grandmother)

Ricardo got a miniature railway.
Within half an hour, he and his brothers managed to wreck it... *cough*

Lorenzo vs. Lego!Grendel

Ahahahahahah Finwëan Strip Monopoly! < /DF in-joke>

... yes. Monopoly.
(from left to right: My mom's back and shoulder, Jesko's head, Ricardo, my brother, and (bored) Alessio)

Of Dec 26th we took no photos (feast at my uncle Jochen's); but we talked about the day before, and my mom judged that we'd 'got off lightly' (concerning Gerhard and Beate's visit). It's amusing when 'we got off lightly' is actually a good judgement of one's Christmas celebration.
It was, in fact, better than that.

Aaaand the end of it all:

Our tree with all the lovely presents I got (except for the Evenstar, which I forgot to take off and add to the pile). Not that you can recognize much there, really, but.

And that, as they say, is that.
The rest of the week has been spent reading and artsing and relaxing. Tonight I'll join

fuchs,

Elia,

kaneda,

elfy,

malicedl and

shiverdl for their New Year's Eve party. I'm glad it's only a small party this time; I like small familiar parties. I just hope the drive to Cologne and back won't be too complicated (it has been snowing and freezing the last few days, but today it's raining, so unless it freezes over, the roads should be clear). Yay.

It'll be the first New Year's Eve in two years that Jörg and I won't spend together (he'll be celebrating in Cologne as well, but with former co-students of his). That's a strange feeling.

In other news, holy crap, Turkish delight is insanely complicated to make. The recipe must have been invented by insane drunken Noldor under influence of drugs who didn't have anything better to do with their time. Seriously. I had played with the thought of trying to make some for the party, but one look at the recipe convinced me that I didn't really want to try. Good grief.

And now:If I don't see/ read you again until next year: All the very best for 2006! See you on the other side. :)