I Don't Even Deserve Christmas

We had a lovely weekend in Leicester, celebrating the first of our early "Christmases" with Alison (next week, we're with John's dad, Andrew) since we're away in the States for the real thing.

On Saturday, we ventured into town and saw a fun 12 Days of Christmas display (above) in Town Hall Square and did a supermarket sweep in Rituals, buying a final few gifts for people on our Christmas gift list and scoring a giant three-wick candle for ourselves in the process. Win* (*except, the candle made the bag so heavy, it broke mid-way during our trip to London and at one point, I was left standing in the middle of the road, trying to balance a candle with lotion sets and a giant reed diffuser. So. Not. Cool.).

When we got back to Alison's house, we played Jenga and I lost miserably:

As you can see, I don't take losing (especially to John) very well. Ahem. Then again, he does have a degree in Engineering.

But anyway.

Alison cooked up a delicious Christmas meal with "all the trimmings", as they say here, including pigs in a blanket, bread sauce, brussel sprouts, and fabulous roast potatoes.

ALSO: I feel terrible. When we piled into Alison's car on Friday night after being picked up by her at the train station, my first greeting was not, "Hello! How are you?" It was: "Do you have any caakkke?" Yes, I know.

Of course, Alison did bake a cake ... just not the cake I wanted. "But I don't like fruit cake," I said from the backseat like a petulant child. "I want a chocolate cake." Of course, I was only joking. Almost.

Anyway, on Saturday afternoon, while Alison was preparing her epic Christmas meal, I heard her in the kitchen whipping something up with flour, sugar, chocolate and ... oh no. "What are you making?" I heard John ask in the kitchen. Dread filled every inch of my being. "A chocolate cake for Jaime!" she responded brightly, continuing to mix, stir, and roast potatoes all at the same time.

YES, I KNOW. I'M AWFUL. I DON'T DESERVE ANY CHRISTMAS PRESENTS. I DON'T EVEN DESERVE CHRISTMAS.

So, um, what did you do this weekend?