Howdy Y’all! We’re back from Christmas Eve deheathenization. Actually been home for a bit, but a snack and a beerverage were required first. 'Twas a lovely service and all went well. The choir outdid theselves. There was applause even! It takes a lot for Whiskypalians to applause in church! Tomorrow morning we have Christmas Lessons and Carols. Yours truly will preside. Rah.
sari the occasional sleep in is good for the soul. So, Cerby does the porn pose when he sleeps.
shoe hope you were able to dig your car out if that’s what you wanted to do.
Boo we had beerverages so I guess we did night drink.
Cookie glad you had a good time with eldest son and family. I agree about holiday travel. It’d have to be a really biiiiiiiiiiiiiiig important thing to make me get on a plane and travel over Christmas and New Year’s.
MOOOOOM glad the gatherin’ went well. Enjoy the time with your family tomorrow.
JtC enjoy the nightshirt. I’m sure it is the latest in nightshirt fashion.
Nellie that’s a nice score on the Rx! You done good makin’ “Let It Snow” go away.
Pearl enjoy the last night of Hanukkah.
FlyBoy glad the leakage stopped. Yay for the roofer comin’ by. He will appreciate the tequila I am sure.
Soon it shall be sleepy time for us. Everyone have a great night/mornin’/afternoon/evenin’, whatever it is wherever you are.
Jane, I’ll try to ID your bird if you can get a photo.
Janis, hag sameach!
Since we’re stuck here rather than with the family for Christmas Eve halibut, we’re making char siu (Chinese BBQ pork) with hot mustard/sesame oil, apricot spread, and scallions on the side, plus rice, wilted cucumber and napa salad, peas, and tangerines. We’ll light the menorah at the table for the complete Jewish Christmas dinner experience.
ETA: I like that soup/stew thread! An REI card is my idea of the perfect gift.
Salmon chowder sounds delicious and perfect for Christmas Eve. I’m gonna remember that for next year. When we lived in Boston I used to make oyster stew for my sweetie and cod chowder for myself on . And you probably have access to much fresher salmon than I do. I can hook you up with grass fed bison but good fish is a wee thin on the ground hereabouts.
I love that you have an otter visitor. Is it a sea otter? Otters are my future DIL’s favorite animal, she’d be envious.
Boo scuttles off to look up a Vieux Carre recipe in hopes of joining you<<
I did not have to work this weekend, thank all the gods, and my bored/retired neighbor plowed my driveway enough for me to get my car back off the roads.
Monkey is my snoozing companion, but holy bejeesus it will NOT stop snowing out there.
My last hour or so at work, I looked over and said to everyone, “You know how I’ve been bitching about there not being any snow yet?”
Evening all. Went out to Denny’s for early dinner and then I minded the dogs and watched tackleball. Heading off to bed soon as I depart about 8am and have a 5-hr drive. Roads should be good. Getting lots of practice with the cellphone, which is probably a good thing. A very Merry Xmas day to all.
Just popping in to say Merry Christmas. It’s been bitter cold but tomorrow I will go out for church no matter what. Tomorrow afternoon is family dinner, I made soft whole wheat rolls and iced sugar cookies.
If you are going to play the Death Pool don’t forget to put your entries in.
I bought cherries for cocktails, but have discovered that there is a stem that got caught in the lid, so the jar is not properly sealed. How did I notice that? There was sticky stuff on the jar, so I washed it. While drying it around the lid, I noticed the stem sticking out.
I will take a picture of it, including the still-intact label, to indicate that it’s not opened, and send it to the company. Hope they just send me a new one. Of course, they are closed until Tuesday. So my “studying” will be delayed. No worries, I have plenty of other study material.
Flyboy, you have really good ideas. Tuesday I’ll go to the store near me that I know has clam juice, and maybe they’ll have Peychaud’s bitters as well. We don’t have sub-freezing temperatures, but we defintely are having a classic green (tree) / brown (mud) / gray (fog) Christmas.
We’re going up into the mountains to find some sun. Tomorrow might be a bit warmer, but it’s going to rain. All day long. If I can find pectin at the store today (I know, bad planning on my part), I’ll make marmalade tomorrow.
Good Mornin’ Y’all! Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah! Up and caffeinatin’. YAWN ‘Tis 21 Amurrkin out (it’s a heat wave!) and clear with a predicted high of 41 and N.O.S. for the day. The big items on today’s agenda are Christmas Lessons and Carols over to the church house and then the biiiiiig Christmas Feast at da cave this afternoon. OYKW is goin’ to hang at da cave this mornin’. He said he got deheathenated enough last night. Thus he will deal with the beast tenderloin. It shall be slow roasted in the roaster/oven thingy. Everything else will get cooked in the oven. Company shall arrive around twoish with pre-feast noshes and we shall have the traditional Bloody Marys. Well, traditional for us. We shall feast around four(ish). With any luck everyone will be gone by six(ish).
MetalMouse I haven’t seen or been in a Denny’s for years. Safe travels today.
shoe yay for bored/retired neighbor plowin’ your driveway. Also yay for weekend off.
Lily your feast sounds nummy! I shall have to check out the soup/stew thread as I do love good soups and stews.
Die how weird about the cherries! Do keep us updated. This is just the kind of thing we Mumpers like to know all about!
Now I need more caffeine and to feed rumbly tummy. Then purtification for deheathenization must commence. Today shall be a jam packed day with almost no time for sloth. However will I make it through!
I know I mainly just lurk in the corners, but I do follow the goings on pretty closely and consider you all friends. My social awkwardness makes it hard to respond.
I hope all of you have a lovely day with family and friends.
Thanks for including me. I really appreciate all of you.
dominos’s pizza manager told me a rather large secret today most restaurants of any kind are empty on Xmas eve … its the emptiest night of the year and that’s why a lot of them close early the night before …
Happy Holiday Greetings of whatever flavor you prefer! It’s 10°F in my back yard right now - a slight improvement over yesterday’s 9°.
I need to find my recipe for the bloody mary deviled eggs - can’t recall if I printed it out or I just look it up on the tablet. Anyway, that’s the main chore this morning - get the eggs deviled. We’re leaving around 9:30 because we’re going to stop at the hospital to see BIL on the way to my bro’s place. We’ll drop off his snacks then visit a little before heading to the fiasco that is my family Christmas. I still need to wrap our white elephant gifts, but that won’t take but a few minutes.
This is all assuming we don’t get a call from MIL.
We breakfasted at Denny’s the other day - the one nearest us is erratic at best. This time, it was OK, but I really hate when the server chooses to memorize the orders rather than writing them down - is that supposed to be impressive? It wasn’t - she got FCD’s order wrong. I kinda like the places where they put in the orders on tablets and, I assume, it instantly shows up in the kitchen with no little scraps of paper hanging in the breeze. Anyway, Denny’s can be OK or sucky, kinda like most chains, I guess.
Roxy is really into the Santa thing. Daughter sent me a photo of the kid holding a plate with a cookie and some milk, smiling sooooooo big! And she actually chose to sleep in her bed so she wouldn’t scare Santa! (She’d been sleeping in the living room, using the tree as her night light.) This morning, there will be a few gifts from Santa under the tree and a bite taken out of the cookie. I’m sure we’ll get a full report later.
And so the day begins. We might get above freezing today, and on Firday, we’re promised 60°, because weather is weird… I’m not looking forward to the ridiculous ride today - so tired of always being the ones to make the trek - apparently it’s too long a drive for the Baltimore folk to visit us here. I’ll give my mom a pass since she’s almost 90, but all my sibs are younger, the lazy bums…
Afternoon, mumpers! Merry Christmas, or whatever you choose to celebrate
It’s a balmy 10c/49f with no predicted change today, and with rain showers (which explains the blue sky and sun outside). Weather app says “Your day will be filled with fuckpuddles” which might well be true, given the folks that live around here.
{{{{{Boo}}}}} I am sorry you are having a tough time, I wish I was close enough to stop by and give you a real hug, instead you’ll have to use your imagination (or cuddle the kitty!).
shoe glad to hear the car is safe and you have some time off to spend resting.
Good to hear that everyone travelling has arrived safely where they expected to be as well. No travel plans here, 'im indoors didn’t book anything for the holiday season for various reasons, and his mother, sister and BIL have gone to Spain. The other siblings are staying at home up north so no need to visit them either.
Plans for today…I’ve peeled veg for later, worked out timings for cooking stuff later, now I just need to drink tea and achieve a certain degree of slothage before I have to go and cook the turkeybird. We have films to watch and there’s champagne in the fridge for later, better get on with the sloth bit!
The last time that I was at Denny’s was before they left Nashville a couple of decades ago metal mouse. I irked evening shift and there was one by Opry Mills mall on the way home (I was still living in the city then). Almost as entertaining as WH.
Merry Christmas, Happy Sunday to everyone!
Up, caffeinating, breakfasted and farting around on the web. No big plans until I go to the nieces this afternoon. I told her that if the roads were icky, I wouldn’t be there, but there is traffic on my street, so I likely will.
I neglected to shop for a roast this year, so we’ll be having some extra-special chili verde for Xmas dinner. It’s special because I roast and peel the chiles myself and otherwise use all-fresh ingredients. I have the pork shoulder, the chiles (both poblano and Anaheim), the tomatillos, cilantro, lime, etc. all at the ready in the fridge, and after I finish this big mug of Irish breakfast tea I’ll go and cut up the pork. It’s too early to blacken the chiles as it makes a strong smell and Mr. brown is still asleep.
Usually I make a roast beef and Yorkshire puddings. But like I said, I didn’t get around to buying a roast. Also, the price of a good cut of beef is getting astronomical.
While the chili is slowly stewing, we’ll take a ride to look at redwoods. We call this “looking at Christmas trees on steroids”. We’re lucky that a grove of them is only a few minutes away.
Have a happy holiday and you Dopers who are ice-bound and blizzard-bound, stay safe.
Eggs are ready to go - I have one zippy bag with boring deviled eggs filling, and the other has the Bloody Mary filling. Just need to remember to take it all. I’ll assemble them at my brother’s house. I’ve also gotten the White Elephants wrapped and I made the cheat sheet for the game.
If anyone cares, we use a single die. It starts with everyone grabbing a gift. Then we go twice around the circle - roll the die, do what it says.
1=swap with the person on the right
2=swap with the second person on the right
3=swap with the person on the left
4=swap with the second person on the left
5=swap with anyone
6=hold your gift
After going around the circle twice, everyone opens their gift, and horse-trading may commence. Or not. I’m thinking maybe between the first and second rounds, we’ll unwrap so the real horse-trading can happen in round 2. We’ll see.
Guess I should shower and don some company-worthy clothing of a sort. It’s cold, but at least the evil winds have subsided. That’s something, I suppose.
I had a minor freak-out - I couldn’t find Higgs. She’d made herself a nest in a pile of throw pillows that I’d tossed behind the glider. Goofy dog.
sounds delicious and perfect for Christmas Eve. I’m gonna remember that for next year. When we lived in Boston I used to make oyster stew for my sweetie and cod chowder for myself on 
. And you probably have access to much fresher salmon than I do. I can hook you up with grass fed bison but good fish is a wee thin on the ground hereabouts.
I’ll give my mom a pass since she’s almost 90, but all my sibs are younger, the lazy bums…