holiday joys
tuesday, december 25, 2002

i have an hour, maybe two, before it's time to start cooking so i thought i'd throw in a new entry. my husband is traditionally the cook around here, but on thanksgiving and christmas i do the cooking (just to prove i still can, you know). our traditional christmas fair: stuffed cornish game hens, sweet potatoes with brown sugar and marshmallows, corn, green beans, crescent rolls, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, olives, martinelli's sparkling cider, and, of course, pie. since saxy's folks are helping with the buying of food for the dinner, we're getting most of that this year plus a ham.

this year kitten will help with the cooking. she's only got a few years left in the house and i won't release her into the world the way my mother released me - without a clue on how to cook a holiday dinner.

yesterday, saxy and i did manage to get to the movie after all. one of the things we thought we would have to pay for ended up being canceled so i told saxy we could use the money to see the movie. of course, then he had to complain that we couldn't also go out to eat lunch like we had planned. *rolls eyes* i swear, he can never see the good side of anything.

we were quite surprised at the number of movie goers on christmas eve. we got to the theater, which is usually very quiet, about 5 minutes before show time and ended up spending 15 in line. fortunately they delayed the start time of the show. i took gypsy into the theater while saxy bought popcorn. he came in during the movie previews. the movie itself was pretty cool, gypsy was very well behaved. we'll probably take her to see the two towers when we go this weekend. as for nemesis itself, yes a crew member dies and while a shock, in a way it made sense.

when we got home, saxy made a wonderful steak dinner. gypsy's christmas gift was the bone, which she enjoyed quite thoroughly. so, all in all, we had a nice christmas eve together. the kids came home somewhere around 9:30 and were all asleep by 10:30, which is an amazing thing, trust me.

saxy made breakfast burritos for everyone and the kids got their surprise lumps of coal from us this morning. seriously, most of the gifts were books, except for taz and kitten. kitten got a portable cd player with rechargeable batteries so she can now stop borrowing mine. taz got a few things from his occupational therapy list: 2 puzzles and the game twister. and for all, from all, was the dvd lilo and stitch. there were a few other things, including the handmade gifts and cards from the kids to us and each other, but the important thing is that all of them were fairly happy with their presents. even ororo got a ribbon to play with. and hopefully i won't hear "i have nothing to read!" from the girls for awhile - at least a week or two.

we're in that space of time now after all the presents have been opened but it's not quite time to make dinner and the guests have yet to arrive. kitten is braiding my hair, shebop is playing with some of her new stuff, jewel is doing dishes, taz and saxy are working on a puzzle. christmas music is playing, there's no fighting, it's really very nice.

and, best of all, the storm the weathermen have been threatening us with since last friday has yet to appear so i can actually enjoy our christmas. i hope your holiday has been just as joyous.