Christmas, 2017 ~ What's being planned?

I had now planned anything but my sister sent us a package from Omaha Steaks including a dessert. I guess we will have some of that. I did buy a loaf of Povitica bread for Christmas. It is in the freezer right now and will get thawed out in a couple days.

I can remember, before we had a full freezer to hold half a steer and/or half a hog, a canned ham, decorated with pineapple rings and marachino cherries was a huge treat at a holiday dinner. Remember using the metal 'key' to wind off the metal band to open the can? Boy, there was more than ONE sliced finger, hand or arm from THAT wicked thing.

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Today is cookie baking day. I'm only making one batch of cut out cookies, just so Tori can have something to decorate and Josh can eat. Andrea's bringing some peanut blossom cookies with her because they're Jim's favorite holiday cookie. Funny, but he usually eats such healthy meals (he's a runner and loves the game of golf). But at Christmas he allows himself EVERYTHING he's always loved and then, after the holiday, he'll go back to his egg white omelettes and low carb diet.

bethk wrote:I can remember, before we had a full freezer to hold half a steer and/or half a hog, a canned ham, decorated with pineapple rings and marachino cherries was a huge treat at a holiday dinner.  Remember using the metal 'key' to wind off the metal band to open the can?  Boy, there was more than ONE sliced finger, hand or arm from THAT wicked thing.

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Today is cookie baking day.  I'm only making one batch of cut out cookies, just so Tori can have something to decorate and Josh can eat.  Andrea's bringing some peanut blossom cookies with her because they're Jim's favorite holiday cookie.  Funny, but he usually eats such healthy meals (he's a runner and loves the game of golf).  But at Christmas he allows himself EVERYTHING he's always loved and then, after the holiday, he'll go back to his egg white omelettes and low carb diet.

Lots of cookies there Beth.
I had to put them out of sight downstairs in the empty bedroom.
Every time we passed them, we would grab some

Tina bought a pre made gingerbread house. She's gonna decorate it with the little guy tomorrow.

Well I'm bummed. For some reason I got confused on the day the kids were getting here. I thought they were flying in late tonight and would be here Saturday, Sunday and part of Monday.

Turns out the kids have 'belt testing' for Tai Kwon Do and they don't fly out until tomorrow night. It will be one heck of a busy 2 days.

But, on the bright side, everything is done and prepared. I might even decide to get the laundry done tomorrow since I have nothing else to do. I even got the 4 gifts wrapped that I purchased....just small stuff so there would be something to open. The 'real' gift is the cash inside!

I got most of the prep done for our Christmas dinner tomorrow.

The roast is completely thawed so I don't have to worry about having a frozen hunk-o-beef to deal with. I made the mashed potato casserole, actually got out my food mill and pushed them through so they will be super velvety. I made the Jello/cabbage salad and looked in the pantry and discovered I had all 5 ingredients for Grandma's ambrosia (5-Ingredient) salad, so I tossed that together, too.

Tomorrow I can cut up the cauliflower & broccoli. The hollandaise sauce will get made at the very last moment. I'm thinking I can use my 'mini-chop' food processor to blitz it up in seconds. I've got lemons on the tree so that's an ingredient I won't have to hunt around for. I may clean the green beans after we get back from supper or I may let them go until tomorrow....I'll see how I feel in a bit.

The cookies are made and ready for Tori to decorate. Knowing Joshua, he'll just eat them plain and be super happy. Maybe I should have picked up some chocolate milk....oh well, I've got chocolate syrup and regular milk so if he wants chocolate he can just stir it up.

Oh no, Beth....that sounds so rushed....but, I am glad you are the "grand for them...

I am not cooking, as usual, since my dad passed... '

I am going to my Cousin's on Christ12.23.201716:40:29mas Eve: just have to bring a hostess gift, a bottle of wine,
and 2 lbs of Italian cookies... We are not Italian, but I live in an old Italian city with a great bakery.. that is a tradition for me... Christmas Cookies from the Bakery...And a FORCED nap for Christmas Eve--late night..


sorry this picture is tipped... kind of came out that way, from this website...sorry..

Christmas Day, I am going to early Mass--scheduled to give out Communion; then home, read newspapers, give my guy, Artie his meds, and then over to another cousin's ~~ my mom's side of the family, for a small Christmas Dinner.....another hostess gift and a grab bag for her son's family...

I cannot wait for Tuesday!~~~~ I can relax and do my own 'thing'.... whatever that is........

If early, I want to wish everyone here a very Merry Christmas...

from me, and  my guy: Artie...yes, he is still h

Wishing you a Merry Christmas too Cyn.
That Artie is such a character.... He is so cute!

I'll join you in the wish for Tuesday to get here! Hey! Maybe if we clicked our heels and said,"I Wish Tuesday Was Here!" Huh?..... LOL

Andrea and the family fly in at 9:10 p.m.......hoping to get out of the airport mess and the 1-1/4 hour drive to the hotel here by 3 a.m. Personally, I don't think it will be that awful. I just checked and their flight is delayed 10 minutes leaving but they must be planning on driving faster than normal because they are scheduled to arrive at the scheduled time.

Somehow I don't think anyone is going to be up early in the morning. LOL

cookingirl wrote:

If early, I want to wish everyone here a very Merry Christmas...

from me, and  my guy: Artie...yes, he is still h

And a very Merry Christmas to you & Artie from Sunny Florida! Enjoy the time with your family.

Tori decided a couple dozen really was enough.....

So much easier than when she was four and the mess was ALLLLLL OVER! LOL

We're just having two guests. Our menu consists of a standing rib roast, the sauce I make that we named Christmas Sauce many years ago, beef fried rice, Brussels sprouts with shallots and bacon bits cooked in cast iron on the stove so they get nice and browned and crispy, broiled tomatoes and crescent rolls.

Appetizers are spicy sausage puffs made with puff pastry, which I made today and they're sitting in the fridge ready for popping in the oven. I also made a small whole brie topped with fig preserves and Marcona almonds and then wrapped in puff pastry and baked. I'll serve the baked brie with several types of delicious crackers I've been picking up over the last couple of months.

The base of my sauce is a reduction of 4 cups of beef broth, one good bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon, and one bottle of tawny port -- reduced that today down to 1-1/2 cups, and will finish the sauce tomorrow in the same pan I cooked the rib roast in. I'll cook some finely chopped shallots in the pan until soft and then add the reduction along with de-fatted roast beef drippings, and simmer that until it thickens up a bit, deglazing the pan to get all the goodies incorporated into the sauce.  Then, when everything is ready to serve, I complete the sauce by adding about 4 pats of cold butter to it until the sauce is shiny and delicious looking.

The beef fried rice was purchased this afternoon from a Chinese restaurant. People always assume I've made it and once they tell how good I make fried rice, I usually tell them the name of the Chinese restaurant we got it from. It's perfect with the rich meal we think, as you can put the sauce on it or eat it plain. We tried a new place today out of necessity as our regular Chinese/Vietnamese place was closed on Sunday and we forgot. Rice is superb with tons of beef in it and lots of pieces of scrambled eggs, too. Huge portions of the stuff, too. I found the place online, checked reviews and ordered the rice right when he headed out the door. When he thanked them for being open, the lady told him he was the only person who'd thanked them for working on Christmas Eve. She hurried away and came back with a wrapped present in a beautiful box that held a couple sets of chopsticks and a pretty calendar. He was tickled at their generosity and I told him they sounded tickled with his manners, too!

I've got the Brussels sprouts all prepped and cut in half, with the shallots peeled and the bacon all chopped up so the sprouts will be easy peasy Japanesey to cook once the roast is out of the oven and resting. I also made the topping for the broiled tomatoes, so those will be another cakewalk to complete; just have to thickly slice a 4 large tomatoes, spread the topping thickly on the slices and pop the tray right under the broiler. The tomatoes will be broiled last, once Brian takes his crescent rolls out of the oven, because he's in charge of those. I always forget to bake the rolls so he took over the task of forgetting the roles most times -- no lie! 

I'm a lot more ahead of the game than I was for Thanksgiving so even if my back is at its worst, I can still get the meal on the table pretty easily. I just have to set the table and finish my centerpiece in the morning, most of which is done. I got a nice beveled rectangular mirror sheet several months ago to build my centerpieces on so I just have to plop the table cloth on, spread out the centerpiece so it looks good on the mirror and get out the new little phony flame tealight candles and position them within the centerpiece. I've got dimmers on the new lights in the dining room so my centerpiece should really sparkle!

Looking forward to the first Christmas in my new kitchen/dining room. Also looking forward to a nice glass of Prosecco with my spicy sausage puffs right after they come out of the oven tomorrow. I made enough for Brian and I to bake a small batch while we're cooking and waiting for the guests to arrive at 1 p.m. If you're drinking while cooking (we do!), it's best if you're noshing, too! Dinner will be around 3:30 p.m.

Merry Christmas everyone. I hope you all have a wonderful day with your family and friends. And I hope your meals are even better than you planned, too!

Merry Christmas. Charlie and I are going to my sisters for Christmas. I will post a picture of what I am taking when I get them made.

Christmas Day was very quiet. The family left about 3 p.m. for the coast and Dane & I just napped for most of the rest of the afternoon.

Christmas supper was microwave popcorn......

LOL

The pics are great! You should have started taking them earlier so you didn't get yelled at! LOL

Well, as you all know, I have no smart phone so I have no pictures of the food. But Al, the guy doing all the work at our house, came for Christmas and brought Anna, the woman who rents a room from him.  They came for Thanksgiving, too, along with my late sister's husband, Ed, who went to Wisconsin for Christmas to visit his sister.  We had such a good time for Thanksgiving that we wanted to do it all over again at Christmas, which we did.  Ed announced at Thanksgiving that he'd be in Wisconsin for Christmas where he bragged he would be waited on hand and foot -- he said something akin to, "I'll just have to sit on the sofa watching TV (knowing Ed for more than 50 years, it's more like he'll be lying on the sofa taking up valuable seating space), and people will bring me drinks, snacks, appetizers and whatever I want." We all laughed but my heart ached for his sister, who's been taking care of her husband, a retired attorney who is quite disabled now from what I've learned over the years. All she needs is someone else to wait on but I sure hope it's his nieces and nephews and their spouses and kids who are at his beck and call.  

Anyway, in the middle of me getting everything together, Al jumped up and came behind the island where I was working and took a selfie of the two of us.  I looked at the picture and said, "You can tell you're a guy.  You never take a selfie from "underneath" a woman's face, since our neck is never the part of us we like looking at as we get older." Everyone howled, so he deleted the first pic and he took another one.  Now, it's not the best picture I ever took but it passed the test to show you guys. I told him later on he'd have to take some pics of my "new" kitchen and dining room.  You can only see a tiny bit of my stovehood over his head and my bread machine to the right on my little desk under the window and the bay leaf wreath I ordered for the holidays. You can also see a teeny bit of the new gray wood-look porcelain floor to the right of my head -- he laid it in a herringbone pattern in that alcove by the door since the floor dipped so badly in front of the back door. (It wasn't noticeable until he tried to lay long tiles over that space, as they would've snapped in two when someone stepped on them if they had been laid in long pieces like the rest of the kitchen due to the severe dip.) That little alcove looked so good and I had a lot of extra tile so I had him lay the tile like that in the half-bath too.  It takes a lot more tile (and labor) to lay it in a herringbone pattern which is the only reason I didn't have him do the whole room like that.  

Al promised he'd take more pics of the kitchen when I give him the all clear when it's neat and clean to show you guys. I'll try and talk Brian into getting in a picture with me, too.