Many years ago, shortly after moving to Idaho, Don made an observation right after Thanksgiving: "It's a shame you spend so much time cooking, since you don't really get a break." The context of that remark was how much time "off" I would get at Christmas if I'm cooking so much.
Well based on that conversation, one thing led to another and before we knew it we had a new Christmas tradition: a junk food feast.
That's right, junk food. That category of nutritionally useless stuff seldom enters our house, and so the girls enthusiastically embraced the opportunity to indulge in all the forbidden goodies they seldom get. For three days -- Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day -- a feast of junk is spread on the table, there are no restrictions or limitations (Potato chips for breakfast? Go for it!), and no one has to ask Mom for permission. I think the kids look forward to the junk food feast more than they do their presents. (Maybe.)
At the end of three days everyone is sick and tired of Doritos and longs for a salad. But for a little while it's a lot of fun. Here are the goodies, waiting patiently for Christmas Eve.
This is the time of year I make homemade Irish cream as gifts for friends and neighbors. (Here's the
instructions, if anyone's interested.)
Mixing.
Adding vodka.
Ready to bottle.
Washing bottles.
Filling the bottles.
End results. Plenty to share with friends.
Meanwhile, on our last trip to the city before Christmas, we had an obligation to fill: a ten-gallon fish tank for Younger Daughter. This wasn't a Christmas present, this was her reward for memorizing the
Declaration of Independence. (We decided to wait until after Christmas on Older Daughter's reward, to see if the price comes down. She gets two seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.)
We got Younger Daughter a tank kit with pump, filter, etc.
Oh my is she thrilled with it! We'll get a few more accouterments (plants, fish, etc.) after Christmas.
Don and I wrapped presents for the girls, as well as for neighbors who would be joining us on Christmas Eve.
On Christmas Eve Eve (Dec. 23), I spent the whole day making
fried apple pies to give to non-drinking friends and neighbors.
(I also had to write, edit, and submit my WND column.)
Since I "six-tupled" the fried pie dough recipe, rolling out and cutting the pies took most of the day. I ended up borrowing a neighbor's marble rolling pin since I needed more weight than my wooden one.
I ended up with 75 or 80 pie shells.
In the evening while I was frying the pies...
...we were treated to some carolers!
Fried pies, done. Each cookie sheet has two layers of nine or ten pies each. These got divvied up and wrapped for various neighbors.
I reclaimed the extra oil in the pans by filtering it through a paper towel.
Meanwhile the girls were impatient for Christmas Eve morning to arrive so they could spread out the junk food feast. I woke up early, as usual, and found a container of cashews on the counter with this little note from Don: "It was after midnight." I thought it was hilarious.
In the wee hours before it got light outside, I folded all the laundry since I knew the table would be in use after that.
The girls got up early, put away the clothes, and spread out the tablecloth...
...then -- at last! -- they could put out the feast.
We had some brief -- I emphasize
brief -- snow flurries during the day, so technically it could be classified as a white Christmas. In reality, though, it was more like a brown Christmas.
Christmas Eve, rather than Christmas Day, is our day of celebration. Guests started arriving in the afternoon, but we had to pause and feed the beasties first. Don adopted festive garb. We always feed the animals extra well on Christmas Eve because legend has it livestock are granted the gift of speech on Christmas, and if you don't treat them well they'll spread the news.
The sun went down in a blaze of glory.
Ironically the livestock are eating from what could technically be called a manger.
We had two couples join us for opening gifts. Both couples have children grown and living far away, so they enjoy being with our kids.
Don always starts out by reading from Luke 2, from the Bible that used to belong to his father (now deceased).
After that, he distributes presents one by one.
No rushing this part!
There were presents for everyone.
It's so much fun having friends join us!
The party ended early enough that we could get to the candlelit service at our church. We're still gathering in the basement since the sanctuary is still unusable after the
church fire.
And that was our celebration. Christmas Day is usually very quiet, and was even quieter this year since poor Older Daughter came down with the stomach flu, bad enough that she had to skip church and could enjoy none of the junk food feast. (We saved some goodies for her.) Ah well, overall we're blessed beyond compare with good health and with each other.
