Corona Christmas 2020
I've been exhausted much of the afternoon, but I've got a second wind, so I'll go over a little more than I was expecting to.
I semi went to bed around 9 last night. I was tired, but didn't really fall asleep for a while. I still woke up around 6 when my TV turned on, and it seemed like I was the first one up in the house. I turned on the tree but went to Wii for a bit, then went downstairs around 7:15, 7:30? We'd had flurries yesterday and they accumulated in some spots, and overnight temperatures were in the single digits, so there was a smattering of white this year.
I had a coupon for 3 Pillsbury baked goods (saved a dollar!) and mom's had her eye on the cinnamon rolls, so she popped those in the oven for breakfast. They take a little while, so we started opening gifts. Honestly, my brain is so fried that I can't recall a lot of what we got, plus a number of things were family gifts for the household, so I'm not sure what was truly mine and what's for the house. I can say my dad put one of my items in a box labeled "reject" (gee, thanks :P ) and my mom gave me a container of lip gloss in a box that clearly held two or three glosses but only had one inside, which cracked me up, plus dad once he realized it. The one gift dad got that fascinated me was this collapsible stool from mom--it looks like one of those collapsing drink cups you take on camping trips. Like, it's kind of ingenious. The one gift that I was concerned mom would hate, she actually loved and put to use right away--two towel bars for the kitchen, one for each of them. Ever since the pandemic started, we've been using our own hand towels in the kitchen, rather than one communal one, and we don't have a good place for them. Hanging them on the oven gets annoying when you're baking. There's plenty more, plus a couple gifts that haven't yet arrived, so I'll wait a day or two to look things over. Some stuff was weird, but some will be really useful.
Mom called grandma late in the morning and it sounds like we may go over there next week. That means no leftovers for her, but she hadn't talked about that at all, so she must be okay. I think she's a bigger turkey fan than ham, too. Santa did drop off gifts for her, so we'll need to see her at some point.
Oh! And, this was kind of a major one--mom got us one of those ring lights with a holder for a phone or tablet. You know, for all those Zoom calls and meetings we do. It's probably not terrible to have, though I don't know how much use we'll get out of it. I'm more impressed that she was able to get her hands on such a thing; I imagine those have been pretty popular. I did tell dad about the gift idea I'd had for mom, a footstool for under her desk, and he wasn't surprised to hear it had been sold out for months. There's always her birthday.
Cooking--gosh, it was nice to have my dad back in the kitchen. Not that cooking a ham is so hard, but we split things somewhat equally and it's nice not to have more of the burden on me this time. Plus, he made his Brussels sprouts, and remembered to get bacon this time. He actually cooked everything yesterday, boiling the sprouts and baking the bacon and saving the fat, frying up everything today. It still took some time. Better was that we had bacon crumbles to add to the salad, which was really tasty. He loves my stuffing and was happy to see me make that. I'd bought a box of sweet potato casserole mix; it's sort of like if Ruth's Chris and Potato Buds had a baby. Not bad, could even be fine on a weeknight, but I think I'll make my full-on casserole for Easter like I usually do. It also yields more. But it was still molten hot out of the oven.
After cooking, my body gave out. I haven't done a whole lot in the past month, and work was so physical on Wednesday that I hadn't really recovered by today, so between cleaning up after gifts and then spending the rest of the morning on my feet in the kitchen, I was exhausted after dinner and spent probably four hours on the couch before retiring upstairs around 6 PM. I'd normally do the cleaning and packing up of food, but it wasn't happening. Mom actually did a fair amount of that, which is great; she doesn't normally, but she knows this hasn't been a normal holiday season. She didn't even complain; she just did it. After a little while, we did pull out desserts; I'd gotten a chocolate peppermint cheesecake from the store, and I did make my fake rainbow Jello, and with a bit (or more than a bit) of Reddi-Wip, we were well sated.
All told, it was a good, low-key holiday that worked out okay. As much as we missed having grandma with us, it was nice to be relaxed and not get dressed and not feel like we had to put on a show. Channel 9 showed a bunch of Christmas episodes from old TV shows like Hazel, McHale's Navy, That Girl, and Bewitched. Clearly one of dad's friends was watching it, too, because on their text chain the friend sent a picture of another guy on a horse and mentioned the Dennis the Menace episode that was playing; Dennis wanted a horse and was trying to trade his record player for it, but the horse kid wanted a typewriter, and the kids in the neighborhood were all trying to get what they wanted, much to their parents' chagrin. I didn't watch the whole thing but on the text chain the one friend said to the other, something like, Dennis wants your horse. Anyway, it was amusing, and it was nice to see these shows that my parents remembered from when they were younger.
I semi went to bed around 9 last night. I was tired, but didn't really fall asleep for a while. I still woke up around 6 when my TV turned on, and it seemed like I was the first one up in the house. I turned on the tree but went to Wii for a bit, then went downstairs around 7:15, 7:30? We'd had flurries yesterday and they accumulated in some spots, and overnight temperatures were in the single digits, so there was a smattering of white this year.
I had a coupon for 3 Pillsbury baked goods (saved a dollar!) and mom's had her eye on the cinnamon rolls, so she popped those in the oven for breakfast. They take a little while, so we started opening gifts. Honestly, my brain is so fried that I can't recall a lot of what we got, plus a number of things were family gifts for the household, so I'm not sure what was truly mine and what's for the house. I can say my dad put one of my items in a box labeled "reject" (gee, thanks :P ) and my mom gave me a container of lip gloss in a box that clearly held two or three glosses but only had one inside, which cracked me up, plus dad once he realized it. The one gift dad got that fascinated me was this collapsible stool from mom--it looks like one of those collapsing drink cups you take on camping trips. Like, it's kind of ingenious. The one gift that I was concerned mom would hate, she actually loved and put to use right away--two towel bars for the kitchen, one for each of them. Ever since the pandemic started, we've been using our own hand towels in the kitchen, rather than one communal one, and we don't have a good place for them. Hanging them on the oven gets annoying when you're baking. There's plenty more, plus a couple gifts that haven't yet arrived, so I'll wait a day or two to look things over. Some stuff was weird, but some will be really useful.
Mom called grandma late in the morning and it sounds like we may go over there next week. That means no leftovers for her, but she hadn't talked about that at all, so she must be okay. I think she's a bigger turkey fan than ham, too. Santa did drop off gifts for her, so we'll need to see her at some point.
Oh! And, this was kind of a major one--mom got us one of those ring lights with a holder for a phone or tablet. You know, for all those Zoom calls and meetings we do. It's probably not terrible to have, though I don't know how much use we'll get out of it. I'm more impressed that she was able to get her hands on such a thing; I imagine those have been pretty popular. I did tell dad about the gift idea I'd had for mom, a footstool for under her desk, and he wasn't surprised to hear it had been sold out for months. There's always her birthday.
Cooking--gosh, it was nice to have my dad back in the kitchen. Not that cooking a ham is so hard, but we split things somewhat equally and it's nice not to have more of the burden on me this time. Plus, he made his Brussels sprouts, and remembered to get bacon this time. He actually cooked everything yesterday, boiling the sprouts and baking the bacon and saving the fat, frying up everything today. It still took some time. Better was that we had bacon crumbles to add to the salad, which was really tasty. He loves my stuffing and was happy to see me make that. I'd bought a box of sweet potato casserole mix; it's sort of like if Ruth's Chris and Potato Buds had a baby. Not bad, could even be fine on a weeknight, but I think I'll make my full-on casserole for Easter like I usually do. It also yields more. But it was still molten hot out of the oven.
After cooking, my body gave out. I haven't done a whole lot in the past month, and work was so physical on Wednesday that I hadn't really recovered by today, so between cleaning up after gifts and then spending the rest of the morning on my feet in the kitchen, I was exhausted after dinner and spent probably four hours on the couch before retiring upstairs around 6 PM. I'd normally do the cleaning and packing up of food, but it wasn't happening. Mom actually did a fair amount of that, which is great; she doesn't normally, but she knows this hasn't been a normal holiday season. She didn't even complain; she just did it. After a little while, we did pull out desserts; I'd gotten a chocolate peppermint cheesecake from the store, and I did make my fake rainbow Jello, and with a bit (or more than a bit) of Reddi-Wip, we were well sated.
All told, it was a good, low-key holiday that worked out okay. As much as we missed having grandma with us, it was nice to be relaxed and not get dressed and not feel like we had to put on a show. Channel 9 showed a bunch of Christmas episodes from old TV shows like Hazel, McHale's Navy, That Girl, and Bewitched. Clearly one of dad's friends was watching it, too, because on their text chain the friend sent a picture of another guy on a horse and mentioned the Dennis the Menace episode that was playing; Dennis wanted a horse and was trying to trade his record player for it, but the horse kid wanted a typewriter, and the kids in the neighborhood were all trying to get what they wanted, much to their parents' chagrin. I didn't watch the whole thing but on the text chain the one friend said to the other, something like, Dennis wants your horse. Anyway, it was amusing, and it was nice to see these shows that my parents remembered from when they were younger.