An Early Start

I woke up early this morning. I'm not sure why as I was up late last night. It does feel good to get up and going while the house is still relatively quiet, two left before I got up and came down, two more left without much fanfare. Now there are 3 kids still in bed and they will probably be there for a while yet.

My coffee is here hot and I have bacon in the microwave as I stop to make a quick post before the business of the day.

I've been knitting like crazy since last Tuesday and now have a stack of dishcloths again. These will be stuffed into Humbug bags as gifts for a few friends this Christmas.

I made my food shopping lists for making cookies and for the holiday food and I'm hoping to get most of those ingredients this week. Christmas cookie baking will begin next Monday and will likely take all week to finish.

Our Christmas menu is rather ecclectic. For years growing up, we had turkey on Christmas, which I just loved. I remember being keenly disappointed the first year I was told we were having something different. I remember when my Grandma used to make the Christmas dinner and we all went to her house, but as the years went by it became too much for her and she would buy the food and my Mom (alternating years with my Aunt) would fix it all.

So one year, they decided they were all tired of eating turkey at Thanksgiving and then again at Christmas a few weeks later, so they made standing rib roast instead. As a kid, I missed my turkey! But it wasn't too many years later I realized what we were having was even better.

Over the years, Mom would make whatever struck her fancy for Christmas dinner. Delicious prime rib, juicy pork loin roasts, whatever sounded good to them was what we had...and it was wonderful.

Fast forward to ME having to make Christmas dinner....my inlaws all live out of state, my parents moved to Arizona and here we were, with nowhere to go for Christmas and no one to invite over. What we were used to was opening gifts, having a big breakfast and then getting ready and going to my Mom's house. I whined to my husband "all I'll be doing is cooking and doing dishes!" First there will be breakfast, then dishes and by the time that is all done I'd have to start making dinner...then more dishes. I was feeling decidedly Scrooge-ish.

So he said he'd make breakfast...and clean it up. Hmmm. That might help. So while he made breakfast and then cleaned it up (with lots of asking where everything was, LOL, and then where it went to put it away) I sat in my jammies reading the book he had gotten me for Christmas.

Also about that time, our kids were getting bigger. We usually get together with another family for New Year's Eve and play games and eat...and eat...and eat. We would make a simpler dinner for the kids, then eat a big fancy meal (usually steak and crab or some other combination of surf and turf) while they were occupied. Our friends' kids didn't really like the fancier food anyway, but ours did!

So I suggested we do that for Christmas dinner. Delicious and quick to fix, our seafood feast ended up being a big hit. I think the kids look forward to dinner even more than opening gifts in the morning. Steamed crablegs make an appearance every year, with some sort of shrimp dish. Usually there is venison roast, or steak of some sort also.

This year, our menu includes homemade potstickers and eggrolls. These can be made ahead and frozen, so just the actual cooking will be done on Christmas day. I'll be making these over the weekend, before the cookie baking begins.

On today's list is some chores in Lucas and Ruthie's room along with my regular work of the day. I'm also going to get my machine out and finish up the Humbug bags. I have the machine quilting done and all I have to do is sew up four seams on each and they are finished. Two of the four seams are the zipper, which I dread and why they aren't finished yet, but I need two of them on Friday and am determined NOT to leave them until the last minute. I'm hoping to do them all today.

I had to tack on a picture of Ruthie and her big girl hairdo. Big sister Rebekah is in cosmetology school and so far has permed, colored, cut and highlighted Rachel's hair...not all at the same time, she's cut, permed and highlighted my hair and has done various things to friend's, friend's moms, etc.

Saturday night she trimmed Ruthie's bangs for me and we were talking about how she and Rachel used to fix Ruthie's hair every morning when she was small to keep it out of her face (she was 5 months old when we started having to fuss with it daily!) The last few times we tried anything other than a pony tail or pigtails she didn't want to sit still. I don't know if she was tired or what, but she let Rebekah french braid her hair, then she fell asleep. She let her redo it in the morning for church. Her hair is not quite long enough and the sides started to slip out, but we took a picture anyway.

Whew! So there it all is, I guess I felt chatty this morning. Ruthie just got up, I've had my breakfast so it's time to get to work. I hope you all have a happy, productive day!