My Christmas Weekend (2005)

The Christmas weekend was very nice. I had been dreading having to get up early (well, early to ME) on Christmas eve to be at My Sweetie's Mom's by 1:00, but oddly enough I woke up at 10:00 on my own. We pulled up maybe 15 minutes after one, but MS's sister's husband was just unloading their vehicle, so they only beat us by a minute or two. We were there early for them because they had to make the rounds to their kids' other grandparents homes that day (two more sets, because there are two dads).

I had decided to try to just use my cane and everything seemed fine at first, because mostly I just sat in a comfy chair near the front door. It was a casual gathering with all sorts of goodies and snacks laid out on the table. After we had all visited for a couple of hours and the two older kids asked, "Can we open presents now?" for the 37th time, we got down to it. My Sweetie's grandmother gave us some money and she gave me one of those gorgeous "peppers in a nice glass decorative container" type things. If there is a name for those, I don't know what it is, but I love them! This one was really pretty. His Mom gave us a cut crystal decanter and a set of six whimsically painted ceramic cat coasters, one of which I scanned for this post. (The gray on his face is the shadow from scanning a non-flat object.) They are really cute and I want to do some sort of artsy/craftsy display thing with them, but I haven't come up with an idea yet. And his sister gave us a gift certificate to my favorite restaurant. My best moments were seeing the three kids enjoying the gifts we gave them and seeing MS's grandmother's reaction to the beautiful quilt I bought her. It's very girly, with florals and embroidery and a scalloped edge. The funniest thing is that I didn't realize that the "workbench" thing I bought for the two-year-old had all these sounds and songs, I know my sister-in-law hates that. I kept apologizing and she kept saying, "Sure, sure you didn't know." We were all walking around like zombies after an hour singing that one song. I'm glad I can't remember it now.

Well, sis and family left and we still had time to kill as we were waiting for dark to do our annual drive around aimlessly and look at Christmas lights thing. I even took a short nap when MS's Mom took his grandmother to Mass. Well in all we were there five hours. In that time I "walked": to the table once, to check out the spread and make a tiny plate; out the front door to a bench three or four times to smoke, and; to the bathroom maybe three times. My foot was KILLING me. I was so happy to get in the truck and know my walking was over for the day. We drove around for over an hour in a very wealthy, well no, THE wealthiest section of Fort Worth and looked at the lights and beautiful homes. It's a very old, old school neighborhood with all unique mansions set on rolling hills. That was nice. So then we headed over to my favorite restaurant and IT WAS CLOSED! So we just headed back to our side of the world and checked out the restaurants there (there's a whole restaurant row near our house) and settled for Razzoo's. Well then THEY said "Our kitchen is closing in 15 minutes." so we ordered quickly. When we got home, we opened our new "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," season 2. We had some champagne and opened one present each. My Sweetie gave me a "Cameron Crazie" T-shirt and if you don't know Duke basketball, you won't know what that is.

Christmas day, I slept 'til around noon. We popped in a pan of frozen cinnamon buns we had bought just for this occasion (I'm not really a sweets for breakfast kind of person) and made some mimosas with our leftover champagne, and opened our gifts. That was fun. He got me lots of cute stuff and a nice blender. I have no idea why I don't have a blender. We think we lost it two moves back. I'm going to break it in New Year's eve with some homemade salsa to go with our chicken quesadillas. I took a short nap, took a shower, got ready and my daughter Kate showed up and we all jumped in the truck and headed over to Mom's. Last year Mom had her open kitchen/living area all done in tile and boy was it easy to get around in the wheelchair. The decorations were lovely and she had Christmas music playing. The men were in my step-dad's large office watching TV and the girls hung out in the kitchen (and the smoking porch). Mom's theme for the dinner was classic 50's fare. She made a melt-in-your-mouth-tender brisket with a cheesy potato casserole, green bean casserole and a Watergate salad. Everything was yummy. I had to take drastic measures. I went to the bathroom and flossed my teeth so I would stop eating the brisket. No way was I going to floss twice. It was a nice evening. Mom gave me the roaster with rack that I wanted and my daughter gave me a gravy separator, two packages of cheesecloth, a baster and a decorative green glass piece (I LOVE green glass). I now have no excuse, and will one day, maybe at Easter, actually make my first Turkey.

So that's how the weekend went. Monday was beautiful, about 78 degrees out, and I figured since I had stayed off my foot all day Sunday, I should probably get back on it. So I went outside to smoke. It's only two small steps down onto the patio and it felt okay. Well Tuesday I woke up and my foot was sore and swollen again, so again I stayed in the wheelchair all day. Tuesday night's shower was awful. I just could not get comfortable standing in the shower. I was so glad when I took that final rinse and got the hell out of there. So I stayed off of my foot again today except to cook, because it is still sore and I think I will stay off of it again tomorrow. Today was six weeks so I thought things would be so much better by now, so I'm a little disheartened. My San Diego trip is only a week and a half away. The way it looks now, I'll definitely be wearing my cast boot on the trip. My mother-in-law said they made her take her's off at the airport, so that will be a bit of a bitch, but I'll be okay. A week and a half is still a while away.

A Great Recipe: I found this orange spiced chicken recipe http://southernfood.about.com/od/friedchicken/r/bl30618u.htm and made it with tenders. I cut down the baking time, but not quite enough. 30 minutes would have been plenty. I'm going to make it with thighs next time. I generally do not like to follow recipes at all, but this one is very short and simple. And it was DELICIOUS!