A late friend (my gay hairdresser) used to say "nothing says Christmas like excess!" and decorated the bejesus out of his house. Lots of antique stuff in the mix (a glorious decorated two-story Victorian dollhouse with one wall that opened out completely filled their dining table.)
Food requests are coming in and the plans are falling into place for next Sunday's brunch. Gifts arriving anywhere on time are another matter, but it is the gathering that counts. I haven't made xmas cookies this year but plan to have a couple of batches of dough and batter ready and my daughter and her wife can supervise the baking (because they'll be taking them home afterward). She's used the krumkaka iron often enough to know how to produce them pretty quickly. It's safe to say this will be a carb blowout.
One of the three cats I'm sitting this week is being particularly uncooperative at meal time. The other two are sweeties, including one who was very standoffish for ages. Now when I put his food plate down I give him head scratches then along the back and scratch the base of the tail and occasionally pick him up. The littlest one (with the most health problems) is just a normal little friendly cat and very patient considering all of the stuff that gets done to and for him. When my friend travels and has me feed them it gives her a mental health break from the cats, and when she comes back home it gives me a break from the cats. Kind of says something about the relationships there.