For the third time (or fourth, if you count flying into the airport for a family reunion) in four months, I’m back in Halifax. This is the traditional final phase of the Christmas vacation, where we end up for our anniversary and to chill a little bit before flying back to Toronto.

Christmas eve was a gentle mix of cleaning up, beating my dad at crib, wrapping gifts and lying about. Christmas day was lots of fun, hauling away lots of booty (many DVDs & Wii games, as well as some other cool stuff…IP-enabled camera, Star Wars trivia book, etc.), having a delicious extended-family dinner at my brother’s house across the yard, and finishing off the day playing the Wii with Nellie, the nephew, the nieces, the brother and the sister-in-law.

Boxing Day started off well — driving to my aunt’s house where just about all of the extended family on my father’s side gathered for yearly reunion & feast — but took a bad turn when I realized I’d left my bag (including my wallet, ID, Blackberry, Zen, camera, etc.) back on the farm. That discovery corresponded with one of the worst headaches I’ve ever had. So Nellie did some championship rally-driving back to the farm where I grabbed the bag, swallowed a bunch of advil and gassed up the car, then we hightailed it toward Halifax. Three extra hours in the car wasn’t how I wanted to spend the day, but there you go. We visited Nellie’s cousin and her family for a bit, then drove to our hotel in Halifax. A huge late-night dinner later, we retired to the comfy, quiet room. Ahhhhhhhh.

It’s been an awesome, relaxing morning…in-sleeping, breakfast-eating, paper-reading, price-checking. Now we’re heading out for a stroll and to see if we can locate any particular deals, and to feed Nellie’s craving for fish & chips at the Rogue’s Roost. Cheers, internet. Hope you’re feeling as groovy as we are.