Post-Christmas

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And so this is Christmas, and what have you done? Another year older, and a new one just begun. (Thanks, John Lennon)

I wouldn't mind joining Santa on a beach right now. But I'll need to stop eating chocolate.

We had two Christmases (spelling??) this year. On actual Christmas day, it was the four of us and my MIL who is residing at a senior's home in our area. It was a quiet day, but nice. I made a big spiral cut ham that I'd purchased on sale a while ago and had frozen. I also made potatoes Grand Mere (sounds impressive, but I found it on Pinterest), carrots, peas, and rolls. For dessert was pumpkin pie and for just husband and his mother (who has been known to say about desserts, "you wouldn't want it too sweet") a Christmas pudding with sauce. Personally, I have no issues with something being "too sweet" and I find (sorry to those of you who read this and have a different taste) Christmas pudding to be vile. The same goes for fruit cake. It's like someone said, "Hmmm, what is the worst part of a citrus fruit? Yes, the peel. So we shall honour it and put it into a cake. And not make it too sweet." My daughter and I agree that the only good thing about fruit cake is the marzipan icing.

I degress. Then on Boxing Day, I had my side of the family. We totalled sixteen people. We were neither small nor quiet. There was so much food just for appetizers that I fear maybe we didn't save enough room for the actual dinner. However, that did not stop us. The meal consisted of the turkey (thank you to my brother for carving it -  a job that I don't enjoy), stuffing, mashed potatoes (which sat quietly in their pot on the stove until my other brother said, "Where are the mashed potatoes?" and I answered with "sh!t" and let people know there was a whole pot of them and they should go back and get some), gravy (thank you to my sister for making that while everything else was being drained and put in serving dishes), carrots, Brussel sprouts, green bean casserole, turnip casserole (thank you to SIL for bringing that), rolls, and cranberry sauce. Three types of pie were brought by my SIL for dessert. There was plenty of wine and beer for those who wished it, as well as there being a real run on the Soda stream machine for carbonated water. (Blehhh!! - not a fan).

We've stopped exchanging gifts for a few years now and I enjoy not having to run around and try to buy for the extended family and usually failing miserably in my gift choices. It was a boisterous, enjoyable time yesterday. My sister and SIL stepped right in to help out and both wanted to stay and wash up pots and platters for me, but I honestly don't mind the clean up afterwards. It puts a nice finish to the chaos. I put through three loads of dishes in the dishwasher and did some hand washing and wiped my counters. It feels wonderful to be done.

I have had a glorious day of sleeping in a bit, finishing a couple more kitchen clean up jobs, staying in my pajamas far too long, and sitting by the tree. My husband made me breakfast and I luxuriated with Netflix and watched another episode of Midsomer Murders (I'm a bit obsessed at the moment).

We have more leftovers in the house than necessary but we all love a reheated turkey dinner after the turkey dinner. My son was so very happy to see that there were still home made cookies left over and assembled himself a plate before getting ready to go work a shift at his part time job.

I shall leave you with this image. In his stocking, son received a small green zombie, which when put in water and left for several days, is said to increase in size 600 times. It was originally about 2 or 3 cm in length. It floated about in a small mixing bowl on the kitchen counter while the flurry of activity was going on and I think it was my sister who said, "I have to ask...what the hell is that thing?"