Christmastime

Christmas Eve and Christmas day where so relaxing, I'm so sad that they're already over!  Dan and I left the house Christmas Eve morning and headed out of town to his parents place.  It was a really beautiful, but cold day.  The sun was shining both days we where up, but overnight it hit -34C, (-29F) which was absolutely frigid.  Needless to say that we didn't go outside much.

We did a lot of relaxing and a lot of visiting.  We don't see Daniels siblings except for a handful of times a year, if that. So visiting with them was fantastic!  It was also nice to have a Christmas with just adults and no kids.  It makes it really easy to enjoy each others company, and it wasn't too loud.

I got some really great presents!  The biggest one was an iPad! It's fantastic, it does everything I need to plus more.

 I also got this lovely peppermint green tea set.  It's a little teapot that sits on a teacup from David's Tea. Plus Dan got me some blooming tea for my glass teapot. Very nice stuff!

Blooming tea. This one was "Lychee" tea.  There was also strawberry and peach tea.

Since I L-O-V-E The Game of Thrones books and show, Dan got me a Ned Stark bobble head and Game of Thrones pins.  The bobble went in my office on a shelf with other nerdy things I've collected over the years, and the pins went on my lanyard at work.  I wore my Game of Thrones t-shirt yesterday at work with the pins on the lanyard.  Fan girl or what?!  

On Christmas Eve Dan and I like to open one present each.  He woke up that morning, and after he was up for about 10 minutes he said, "can we open presents now?" Haha!  So we opened one present each that morning.  He got me a beautiful necklace.  It was a complete shock to me, since he told me he'd never pick out jewelry for me.  I'm very picky about jewelry, but I think he did a fantastic job!

I also got two surprise gifts! Dan, his dad and brother all collaborated to give me their old .22!  Yup, I officially unofficially have a gun.  I don't have a firearms license, so it's not technically mine.  But it's mine to use whenever I want when Dan goes out.  It totally shocked me, since Dan is the one into guns and I just occasionally go to watch.  I don't usually use his guns much.  I'm very honored though that they gave me one that has been in the family for years.  Now the weather needs to warm up so I can use it.  The other gift where a pair of slippers.  My sister-in-law (or Sister-in-love as she calls it!) and I both got a pair to match my mother-in-laws. They're so soft and warm, the best pair of slippers I've ever had! Plus they don't "flop" around or slip off. 

For Christmas, I got Dan a scope for one of his guns, The complete Bond box set (I had no idea there where over 20 movies!), a few books, The John Carter movie, a 1/2 lb Reese's peanut butter cup, and a portable DVD player for his work truck.

Christmas afternoon we had our turkey meal, and the biggest pie I've ever seen!  Have you seen Costco pies?  They're massive! Just looking at one will give you a sugar headache!

Look at that pie!

I decided not to count calories since I wasn't making any of the food this year.  I instead ate by intuition, or at least did my best to!  I filled my plate with mostly veggies, then lots of protein.  Then the rest of the plate I squished on stuffing, potato and a touch of gravy (okay, I ended up spilling gravy on everything accidently.  So I had lots of gravy).

Dan and I ended up  having a conversation about food on the way home Christmas Day.  He noticed that I wasn't tracking my food, and that I had some treats (Pie, chocolates, crackers, etc).  He asked me if I was okay emotionally, and he expressed his concern for me not tracking those days.  Here is where my head is at for these past few days.  Normally, I track my food no matter what.  No "ifs, and's or but's" about it.  But here's the thing.  The reason I track is to get on course with a healthy relationship with food.  It's to keep me in line with my goals as well as to help me lose weight.  It's a tool, and one that is a key for my future success.

The reason I did not track on those two days is pretty simple.  First off, tracking 3 meals a day of foods I don't know would be ridiculous.  I didn't have a food scale, nor nutrition information.  Secondly, at this time I felt like I was in a great place mentally.  That is to say, I feel like I have a good relationship with food at the moment.  I knew I would most likely eat over my calorie goal every day, so instead of writing it down and getting stressed over it, I decided to eat intuitively and see how I did mentally making mindful decisions about each bite instead of obsessing over how many calories I was consuming and getting upset that I "couldn't" have what everyone else was having.  I suspended my calorie tracking for two days so I wouldn't get hung up on the logistics of it.  I decided to eat and behave like someone who had a healthy relationship with food, and it worked.  I didn't obsess over snacks I "couldn't" eat, and it worked out well.  I'm sure I"ll have a small gain on the scale this week, but that's okay.  I did not overeat, I did not binge.  Those are huge goals that I met.  I would rather tackle Christmas and be well mentally afterwards, than to go crazy and lose one pound.

The reason Dan was concerned was because it was a slippery slope I was treading.  How easy is it to use Christmas as an excuse to eat whatever you want, and then to fail to get back on track afterwards?  You might think that you will eat perfectly every day afterwards, but once you stop it's so easy to find excuses to keep eating poorly.  Maybe there's still pie in the fridge and cookies on the plate in the living room.  Maybe you're going to a New Year's party.  There was a legitimate reason for Dan to be concerned.  When you're an over eater, a binge eater and a food addict it's so easy to slip down the slope once you've had a taste of glorious sweets and sinful fatty foods.

I'm so thankful for my rough journey.  I know that I can make it through phases like this and come out unscathed.  I just need to believe in myself and listen to my body.

Here are a few photos of Christmas Day:

I love dogs, we had 2 Pugs and 1 Boston Terrier. Love those pooches!

Me trying out the camera on my iPad for the first time. Both of us with weird faces!

The Christmas tree!

This was taken at around 3:40 PM Christmas Day. The sun was already starting to set!

It was a very beautiful Christmas sunset.

One of the outdoor kitties. He/She was enthralled with the strap dangling on the camera, see it watching it with wide eyes?

Yesterday was a pretty hectic day at work, not too much to write about. The store was absolutely crazy all day, and probably will be busy until the New Year since we have sales all week.  I found out yesterday that someone ran into our store front with their truck and now our door doesn't close all the way.  The store was absolutely frigid all day, today I plan on wearing thick socks to work and a sweater since it's colder out today.

We also had a large statue shipped to our store.  If you're familiar with the game Assasin's Creed, then you'll know whom and what I'm talking about.  We got a life-sized (more like, larger than life) Connor statue.  We had several customers ask to buy it, and I had to help quite a few take pictures with it.  There where only 3 given away in Canada and we got one!  It's a very cool addition to our store.

This morning we where listed as the second coldest place on Earth.  I'm really surprised Dan is working today, since he's working outside.  But he is not being sent out anywhere, he is working in the yard at work I assume.  I really wish we could close down the store on cold days like today, especially with a door that doesn't close properly!  It was -39C here this morning (-38F) but is supposed to warm up to -29C (-20F) by this afternoon.  I think anything colder than -25C and it all feels the same anyways, I suppose!

I was supposed to have a run scheduled for yesterday but I had to skip it.  My feet got so cold at work they kept cramping up, and then they ached all night. I find that with the more weight I lose the colder I always feel.  I used to be a furnace and would walk around the house with shorts in the winter, now I need to always wear a sweater and thick socks, what a change!  I could barely walk when I got home from work yesterday, I really need to invest in good winter boots!  So I'll have to do my run tomorrow after work instead.

How was your Christmas?  What did you get?