Merry Christmas!

It was a lovely Christmas. Presents were opened, movies were watched, books were read, puzzles were solved, games were played.

I watched The Secret Garden (1993), Children of the Stones (1977), Point Blank (1967), Cheaper by the Dozen (1950), and two others. The quality of the movies varied. I found Point Blank slow, repetitive and unsatisfying. Although Children of the Stones reminded me of Hot Fuzz (2007), the later movie was far more entertaining. By far the best movie of the week - and one of the very best I've seen all year - was The King's Speech (2010). In theaters now. Go see it.*

Books read or listened to: The Cat in the Hat (Geisel); Emil's Pranks (Lindgren); The Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien); A Fly Went By (McClintock); The Giraffe, the Pelly and Me (Dahl); and Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat (Watterson).

Artists were commissioned for the occasion. Here we have a seascape:

And here a frostscape behind the antique bottles:
We also broke in a Wii which had been lying around for a year. So fun - and kinda addictive. Each game, even the non-competitive ones, had incentives to keep us playing. The whole family tried bowling, and everyone had a chance to shine. Sword fighting and boxing got my heart rate up... My back is still sore!

FN* Come to think of it, if anyone needs a living actor who could pull off the Frank Gilbreth character in Cheaper by the Dozen in a new remake that would be as charming as the 1950 version, I hereby nominate Colin Firth.