Quiet Cambridge Christmas

The streets of Cambridge were devoid of cars and bicycles from Christmas Eve through Boxing Day, 26 Dec. M* and I spent the 2 1/2 days baking (gluten-free chocolate chip cookies and gluten-free version of Grandma Welling's butter cookies), attending midnight mass at Our Lady of English Martyrs Church (a Gothic revival church built in the 1880s that gives the impression of having more seating than in actuality-arriving 40 minutes before the service afforded us standing room and the pleasure of being bumped by the constant stream of new arrivals-good thing for a nice priest, a well-trained choir, an impressive (but sometimes a bit too dark) organ, and mass interspersed with familiar Christmas songs ('Silent Night, Holy Night', 'O Come all ye Faithful', 'God rest ye Merry Gentlemen,' and 'Hark the Herald angels sing')), cooking (roast chicken; a Mexican breakfast including homemade Mexican black beans; cock-a-leekie soup; lentil soup; a Christmas dinner of salad, ham, mashed potatoes, carrots, brussel sprouts), eating (everything we cooked!), walking (around the deserted streets of Cambridge), sleeping (until 9, 10 or 11am as sunrise is not until 8am and then no streams of sunlight to wake you) and watching movies (double feature of 007 (first Bond movie that either of us had seen in theatre, and it didn't disappoint) and Borat (I only watched about a half of the movie as my face was buried in M*'s shoulder due to the gut-wrenching uncomfortableness of the comedy)) at the Arts Picturehouse (a theatre with a broad selection of ever-changing movies and a fully stocked bar).

M* and I had wanted to start a Christmas tradition; we decided gaming on Christmas would work. I rarely want to game one-on-one with M* because he's too competitive for my liking. However, by the time we finished cooking and cleaning it was late, and we ended up snuggled under our duvet watching a few episodes of season two of the BBC comedy (or is it terror?) series "League of Gentlemen" capped off with a classic "Strangers With Candy" episode, Feather in the Storm. Not sure if this is going to become our Christmas tradition.

Here are some pictures from our Christmas Day walk.
Kings College, me hanging from a tree in front of Kings College (my head is not that conical--it's the hat--really it is), a lone punt on the Cam in front of Trinity College, ducks taking advantage of quiescent punts