The wife called it "Little Christmas". Or, as she explained it to our Baptist guest, "the Epiphany". A celebration of the arrival of the Magi at Bethlehem.

She mentioned she had a friend growing up whose family always waited until Little Christmas to open their gifts. While young she felt sympathy for her friend, having to wait more than an extra week. But as she grew older, she came to realize her friend's family got to shop for gifts during the after-Christmas sales.

And her friend made out quite well as a result.

And yes, she knew we were a day or two off. But with eldest son working at his new job, his girlfriend working two jobs, and youngest son being off to the Arch city, this was the only evening we'd been able to get together.

So she baked us three pizzas with her own special crust (which were all three perfect), and we opened gifts. It was a simple celebration, but with the wife magically producing more gifts on the table than I knew about.

And yes, there was the one for her from me that she already knew about. Which ended up as a backdrop for youngest son's dragon incense burner, which he also knew about.

Many of the other gifts turned out to be some sort of food.

Mostly chocolate.

But naturally, there were surprises. Like the quacking little yellow rubber duck with a blue LED up his ass.

The visiting corgi was less than thrilled with that one.

The Celtic CDs were a total surprise to me. As were the other gifts I apparently gave to the wife.

Courtesy of Santa (i.e., the wife).

Rather than the usual gorge-fest of paper-rending, this was a one-at-a-time gift opening. Which was pleasant, but quickly wore on the patience of the four-legged attendees, who were well past their bedtimes.

Then it was time to bring out the decks of cards or, as our guest's grandmother called them, "Satan's playthings". And we began playing 18 rounds of Golf (I won).

Somewhen around the sixth or seventh round, midnight snuck up on us. And youngest son brought out his special surprise, a New Year's treat being delivered 4 nights late.

We wiped out the last of the best bottle of vodka he smuggled out of Russia.

Today we slept in until noon.