Due to an unfortunate-- and, in retrospect, wholly predictable-- miscalculation involving the pub and midnight mass, we went to church at noon on Christmas Day, at Our Lady of the Navigators. Big seafaring country, Portugal. The church is tiny, octagonal, and has the best pews in Europe. Not only is there padding on the kneelers, which is fairly rare, the padding itself is effective, which is pretty much unheard of. Equally unheard of is padding for your butt-- plain, hard wood is more typical. But the brilliant designers of these pews didn't stop there. There's padding for your back, and (my personal favorite) there is even padding for your arms and elbows when you kneel down! If it wasn't for the music, we'd be on to a winner.

It wasn't that bad, the music. The organist was nice, but the background guitar accompaniment during the actual body of the mass was a bit much. The priest would say his bit, then the guitarist throw in a bit of noodling, which would stop when the priest was ready to pray some more. It's not a movie, folks. It doesn't need a soundtrack.

The woman who was obviously in charge of the music had a decent voice, and sang O Holy Night a capella. But it was her treatment of Adeste Fidelus that pretty much did it for me. I think most people know that one: O come, all ye faithful; Joyful and triumphant, O come ye, O come ye to Bethlehem, and so forth. Well, she'd inserted a new second verse (in different type in the song pamphlet, yet), and bumped the usual second verse down to third. The first line was something like "God to God, Lord to Lord" which could use some improvement, but I'll buy it. However, it was followed by:

Maybe it's just me, but I suspect she made it up.

After Mass, we hightailed it back home to open a bottle of champagne and our presents before people started to show up for dinner. Elvis gave me a beautiful snake pendant. It is gold, has sapphire eyes and small diamonds embedded in its back, and curls around a very smooth, very shiny gold chain, and snuggles just under the hollow of my neck. It is unusual, elegant, sexy and I absolutely adore it. Elvis has very good taste, if I do say so myself.

I gave Elvis a new pen and pencil set, a sweater, some shirts, some hardback books and Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, which should be amusing. Santa gave us some paperbacks and CDs, which should keep us occupied for a while.

Then our guests started to arrive, and the gorging began. More champagne, of course, then we sat around munching on various goodies while the roast beast was roasting. The eggnog I made went down pretty well. Apparently, the Brits don't do eggnog, so it was a new thing for some of us.

Miss Kitty: I can't taste any alcohol.

Popeye: I sure as hell can. Here, have some more.

By the time dinner was ready, we were all pretty toasty, despite the decimation of the cheeseball and crackers, veggies and dip, little sausages with barbecue sauce, and Miss Kitty's baked brie with apples. Everybody loved the dinner, too, which was great. The beef, when I took it out, turned out to be quite a bit bigger than it looked when the butcher was butchering it for me. It was yummy though, and plenty of people took seconds. Some even had thirds. We didn't need the ham at all, but I made it anyway because some of the guys were wanting it. I don't even eat ham: it tends to be too salty for me, plus nitrates and I don't get along too well. I'll probably have a sandwich, though: there's plenty left and ham doesn't freeze. I bet I can unload some of it on Popeye, too.

After dinner, we pretty much sat around and stared at each other while digesting, until I made everybody get up and play darts. That energized them enough to start in on the Christmas cookies (which, again, apparently the Brits don't do). They turned out well. I need to improve my way with food coloring, though, which I'd never used before. The green was pretty cool, but I thought the red looked a bit too much like nail polish. No one else seemed to mind (or even really notice the resemblance), and I think my post- modern Christmas trees are pretty cool.

The downside is that no one wanted any pie after all that sugar. Guess what I had for breakfast today. I took a big plate of cookies down the the pub, though, so there aren't too terribly many left.

And yes, we did go to the pub last night. For the walk, you see, after all that food. And the place was packed, too. Seems that everyone that was still in town stopped by for a bit of holiday cheer.

Well, lots of holiday cheer.

They loved my cookies, though. True, drunks will eat just about anything, but even the rare sober ones (pregnant women and the bartender) thought they were pretty tasty.

So I'll make them again next year.

But next time, I'm staying away from the food coloring. Well, maybe a bit of green, but that's it. And I'm staying away from the shooting stars cookie cutter as well. Those ones are a nightmare to frost because they keep breaking in half. And then I'm forced to eat them, because you can't go around serving people broken cookies.

And I want to save my calories for the Christmas dinner.

And maybe some more of that eggnog.