Christmas Eve
Gabrielle, Dennis, and I had a delicious dinner of roast pork, sweet potato, mashed, macaroni and cheese, oyster dressing, whole cranberry sauce, green beans and beverages. We stuffed ourselves but managed to keep to reasonable portions. We relaxed while listening to Christmas songs in the living room with only the tree and two candles lit. We had fun conversations and reminisced a while. Before opening gifts we got each other, we did our traditional singing of carols....complete with the twelve days of Christmas. What fun it was despite our hodge-podge of melodies.
Afater the exchange we cleaned up a bit. Bertie and DW went to bed while I had aato stay up to bake the nut rolls. Gabby was tired from making her wonderfully delicious baked macaroni and cheese dish from scratch~not even store bought croutons! UMMM!
My dough had to rise twice before I could bake the nut rolls. That kept me up until 2:30 am to cook the filling (skipped the rum this year). They turned out so good with the shiny browned outer layer, fluffy inside and filling spread so evenly. One bread I braided and left out the filling.
While waiting for the breads to bake (two sessions), I thought about Ashland having been on CNN.......the story of a depressed economy. Archway cookies had closed leaving many unemployed without warning. Lantz company bought Archway, hired back the employees, gave them all a $1,500. bonus check. A story of hope and thanks for Christmas!
We've been fortunate and thankful!!!
Today we did a traditional movie outing to see Benjamin Buttons. Gabby's friend, Ted, came along and stayed for dinner and wonderful discussions about so many subjects. What a nice guy!
Bertie and DW are in bed and I'm heading in the same direction ~ a happy, thankful person. Tomorrow we'll celebrate with Dinky, Dan, and Lily. Her first!! Yeah! Camera is ready!
Afater the exchange we cleaned up a bit. Bertie and DW went to bed while I had aato stay up to bake the nut rolls. Gabby was tired from making her wonderfully delicious baked macaroni and cheese dish from scratch~not even store bought croutons! UMMM!
My dough had to rise twice before I could bake the nut rolls. That kept me up until 2:30 am to cook the filling (skipped the rum this year). They turned out so good with the shiny browned outer layer, fluffy inside and filling spread so evenly. One bread I braided and left out the filling.
While waiting for the breads to bake (two sessions), I thought about Ashland having been on CNN.......the story of a depressed economy. Archway cookies had closed leaving many unemployed without warning. Lantz company bought Archway, hired back the employees, gave them all a $1,500. bonus check. A story of hope and thanks for Christmas!
We've been fortunate and thankful!!!
Today we did a traditional movie outing to see Benjamin Buttons. Gabby's friend, Ted, came along and stayed for dinner and wonderful discussions about so many subjects. What a nice guy!
Bertie and DW are in bed and I'm heading in the same direction ~ a happy, thankful person. Tomorrow we'll celebrate with Dinky, Dan, and Lily. Her first!! Yeah! Camera is ready!