derekl_1963

Sorry for being a bit late... Random Christmas notes;

Sadly, I was not feeling well on Christmas Eve, so we had to skip Matt & Laura's Christmas Eve dinner. This was a huge bummer, as it's a big part of our holiday traditions.

Brenda and I being the people we are, half our gifts to each other were books. :) I gave her several on calligraphy and illumination, and one on Sumi-E painting. She gave me one on the history of Polaroid, one on photographic philosophy, one on the history of A&P (the grocery chain), and a cookbook by Ming Tsai. She also gave me a cool figure of Dr Teeth and a really nice bottle of scotch. (My scotch collection is growing... should post an inventory soon.)

We'd debated doing a turkey for Christmas, because being away at the family reunion at Thanksgiving meant no turkey leftovers... But ultimately, we did a ham because a turkey dinner is too much work on Christmas Day and a turkey doesn't give me the ham bone and stock I'll need for Hoppin' John on New Years Day.

Christmas was briefly white, just enough to muck up the roads a little, then turned to rain.

Breakfast today will be a big ol' slab of the pumpkin pie Brenda made (with the filling from scratch), since I was too full to have any yesterday.

To all my friends (real and virtual) a Merry Christmas!

This is probably my favorite Christmas video and nearly my favorite Christmas carol of all times, enjoy:

In response to angharadalbanes ...

I don't actually have an holiday playlist, or indeed any holiday music in digital form at all.

So here's my all time favorite song courtesy of You Tube"

Our Christmas tree illuminated only by it's own lights.

Quite the adventure - I was supposed to meet Eric (fugazi2112 ) at Target at 6AM... But I didn't get up until 5.35, just enough time to shower and get out the door. Here's a frightening image for you - me, driving from the house to Silverdale, sans caffeine.

I pulled into the parking lot at precisely 6 and almost immediately entered Bedlam - the parking was an absolute zoo. Counting myself lucky to escape unscathed, I parked over behind the carpet place across the street, called Eric and let him know he was in for a hike. Surprisingly he was at the car by just ten after with his purchases in hand and by twenty after we were seated in Shari's. I looked at the server and enunciated as clearly as I possibly could, "Coffee". Then things got complicated as she tried to ask me questions!  Questions before coffee?  Might as well question the wind - "blargh blabba roast gidda french asaha vanilla?".  I repeated myself: "COFFEE" - which seemed to have the desired effect as shortly after a cup of that most vital of substances appeared before me.

After coffee and breakfast we headed over to Lowes, which was surprisingly empty - and I scored a Christmas gift high on Brenda's list for nearly half off.  From there we bopped over to almost equally Home Despot, Circuit City, Office Depot, and Staples - mostly because we were bored and waiting for Morte (hrmortcia ) and Zii to emerge from the bowels of JoAnnes.  Once we all met up, we made a brief stop at Micheals (Morte and Zii shopped, Eric and I hung out and made cracks about Martha Stewart wannabees), and then to Starbucks for MORE COFFEE and a bit of breakfast.  Then off to Costco where Eric and I pondered books and electronics while Morte and Zii did whatever it was they were doing.  Afterwards we split up - they home to clean, me to run errands and then home to clean.

An excellent Thanksgiving and a long weekend to wrap up...

Thanksgiving Started preps (shopping) on the Saturday before and started making stocks and brining on Monday...

Spent most of the day itself in conversation, cooking, eating, and recovering. Chuck came over (as usual) and Matt and Laura joined us as well this year. When Matt saw the menu I'd posted on the whiteboard in the kitchen, he grabbed a marker and added "Friends and Family" to the menu - which all heartily agreed with. (Though the company present blurs the lines between them somewhat.)

Friday Yes, I actually went out and shopped on Black Friday - though mostly for stuff we need about the house. I've done most of my Christmas shopping already, either online or accumulating stuff throughout the year. Bought an air compressor and a wine refrigerator on sale and saved considerable money between the two. The balance of the day was spent continuing cleanup.

Saturday Back out shopping - this time with Brenda to look at some computer desks I spotted on Friday. Nice looking, with a couple of handy features, and pretty inexpensive.

But (and there is always a 'but'), no matter which way we arrange them... The computer room is six inches too small in any given dimension to fit three in here in any sort of an attractive and useful configuration. Worse yet, none of the configurations allow any significant amount of bookshelves to fit into here - it will all have to be wall shelves. I'm starting to think we made have made a significant (and expensive) error in putting the computer room/auxiliary library downstairs and the craft room upstairs.

Saturday also saw the latest installment in the Annual Debate between Brenda and I. She want to follow her families tradition and put Christmas decorations up just about as soon as the turkey cools. In my family, Christmas decorations went up fairly late because one of my brothers was born on the 14th of December.

Sunday Pure relaxation time at last. No errands, and only a little bit of housework to do. Brenda made cookies from a recipe my Mom gave here - "Gold Rush raisin cookies", and I quite spoiled my dinner with them. (I'll post the recipe in a bit.) In the evening we finally caught up on Heroes. (More on that after tonights episode.)