Hi, friends!
If you’re in the US, what are you doing tomorrow for the holiday? Are you going places and doing things? Are you staying at home and enjoying quietude? Taking Friday off and shopping?
I’m going over to the parents’ house tomorrow for dinner, but thanks to some menu choices this year I have nothing to bring. I’m hoping to do some house cleaning tomorrow morning to free up weekend time. Also I like to put up the Christmas tree the weekend after Thanksgiving so if I can get the clutter and dust situation under control, that makes things much faster for the rest of the weekend. Also i have some apples that are mushy so it might be a day to bake apple muffins.
T day will be super informal due to my wife celebrating the one week anniversary of her surgery. She’s off the oxy which is excellent and so far the ankle isn’t oozing anything alarming.
Good news
Tree is up, presents are wrapped, onward to the Christmas cards. We were going to go to a restaurant for dinner tomorrow, chosen by the visiting Texas brother-in-law, with 8 other miscellaneous relatives. Turns out he chose a fancy restaurant that is serving a complete turkey dinner, family style. Based on the menu, I could eat the Brussels sprouts . . .at $60 a person. So instead I am cooking just for we two Blacksmiths.
I just survived a 2km long, 250m high elevation hike on a trail running on the side of a near cliff face to get down to my friend’s cabin’s lake side dock. Glad I brought hiking boots (and borrowed a pair of hiking/walking sticks from him) or my ankles will be cursing me this trip.
Thankfully there weren’t much loose rocks, ice or snow on the “trail”.
I was also reminded how bad in shape I am. In my mid 30s hiking days, I know I could have managed the hike back up without stopping. Today, I was dripping in sweat and stopped a few times to catch my breath and let my legs/ankles/feet stop burning.
A few years ago I realized that all the extra pounds I put on since college meant that I was basically hiking with a knapsack full of rocks or water bottles.
I have almost everything prepped and ready for tomorrow. I took pies to my neighbor earlier today. My daughter is coming for the day.
Since I am descended from Puritan stock (it’s true, on my father’s side; my mother’s side contains all the Canadians) I will be working. But it’ll be by choice. It’s just me and the Faithful Hound this year, and I have one small project and one very large project, both of them enjoyable and distracting and pay pretty well, and idle hands are the
perfect holder of the highball glassdevil’s workshop and all.I’ll be putting up our tree too and writing holiday greetings cards. Starting to feel festive here. My husband and kids have been making a fresh batch of gingerbread cookies every week since Halloween. I think it’s time to transition from bat and cat shapes to hearts and gingerbread people.
Does anybody have a good rumball recipe? My grandmother used to make them every year but she is not one to share her recipes. I’ll ask her again. Maybe she is willing to pass it on now.
I have no recipe, but one of my friend makes those Oreo truffles and adds like a third of a cup of rum. They’re delightful.
Oooh sounds yummy!
No plans here. My family isn’t coming because I’m sick (not covid, but probably RSV) which I’m a little sad about but mostly ok with.
After last year’s pizza-and-food-poisoning debacle, everyone had taken the hint that I am no longer cooking and doing the whole deal. My mom had suggested boxed dinners from a local restaurant to be eaten here (I’m really the only one with a house of sufficient size for 16 people), which would have been fine, but I don’t want to play Typhoid Mary, so we’re just skipping the whole deal.
Yeah one of my parents had unexpected dental work a few week back and they’re still on mush. I think we’re making a meatloaf and some canned veggies because things need to be super soft.