How do you spell Christmas

In my house this year Christmas has been spelled C H O C O L A T E !!!
Look, here's the proof.

The HD3QBEM and I went to Lake Taupo for a holiday over Christmas weekend and had a great time with beautiful weather.   Our hotel provided a delicious dinner on Christmas night with really good Christmas crackers.   Look what came out, with a bang, a hat and a crazy joke.  

It was fun.   A young fellow on the piano and his good looking friend on the double bass provided carols as accompaniment.   We had a good time.

I even managed some stitching -  the reruns of old movies on TV were excruciating so I found the off switch and stitched instead.   Woodland Delight is now finished - well, I need to construct this into a small zippered purse.   In spite of my worries I am pleased with the finished product.

Next day we went for a drive around the western side of the lake.   Both of us decided that to have a holiday home here one would need a million dollars, a good architect, a cleaning lady and a gardener besides which a boat and a couple of jetskis would be essential too.   The homes were mostly huge with large landscaped grounds and huge expanses of glass making most of the view.  
The civic authorities had realized that people like me come to visit with library bags stuffed full of books so provided an armchair and a lamp at this superb lookout spot.   Fun!  But it wasn't comfortable -  the mosaic was so very very hot to sit on.

My Christmas gift to myself was to stay up late reading and then to sleep without turning my alarm clock on!   I did just that :-)
We also travelled down the eastern side of the lake and found a less exotic lookout point at which we had a picnic lunch.  We could see Mt Ruapehu across the water, still wearing its snowy cap.

My icecream was about to melt in the 26 degree heat so I couldn't get a photo of that  -  just the smile of delight for a wonderful holiday.

And I have made a start on another project - releasing it from the stash where it has sat for years.  I ordered the basket from CrissCross Row (back in the good old days) and will be pleased to have this project finished and to regain the space on the shelf !

Working for the government does have some benefits and today I had another days holiday (an extra on top of annual leave).   A departmental day!   It felt good to have time to get my hair cut, change my library books and above all to get the grocery shopping done knowing that I wouldn't have to go out again into the mad rush that is retail this time of year.
Back soon - it's dinner time now.