As usual Christmas Eve/Christmas day are spent relatively quietly in our home. We are far enough away from grandparents/uncles/cousins/aunts etc. that travel is prohibitively expensive and cumbersome. So we stay put and travel to see them at other times of the years. Here are some of the highlights.
Church. My favorite reading to LISTEN to from the gospel is the one from Luke that begins “In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus…” In the Catholic church, this is the gospel reading for Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve. Always. I was thrilled that this year the combination of older children and an early “Midnight” Mass (9pm) meant that I would hear this read in church for the first time in many years. I was psyched. I was pumped. Then they got to the gospel reading and it was in Spanish. Bummer. Most of the time I really like attending a bilingual parish…most of the time. The homily was very touching though. Our pastor told us that he had spent some time during the week in meditation regarding the homily. He asked the Lord what He would have him tell His People. Our Pastor said that he felt very clearly the Lord tell him to tell us that He loved us. Something I very much needed to hear and I ended the service in tears.
Menu. This year I was released from the requirement to put a turkey on the Christmas table. Stan and the children all agreed that something different might not kill them. Stan’s only request was that the meat dish be beef. I ended up choosing a beef tenderloin. (OUCH!) I cut it in half and Food-Saver’ed one half for future use. The other half that showed up on the table Christmas day. To prep it for cooking, I spread with a paste made from rosemary, garlic, salt, and walnut oil. I let it sit that way in the refrigerator for about 48 hours.
The rest of the menu? Well I must have Uncle Ben’s wild rice for Chris. I must have mashed potatoes for Tim. I must have corn for all of them. The children must have sparkling cider or they will die. That leaves only the choice of salad for any substantive creativity. The mashed potatoes had roasted garlic, a little rosemary, and a generous handful of shredded cheese. The cheese was a Whole Foods find and I can’t for the life of me remember the name. It was a hard cheese that was similar in flavor to gruyere. Very yummy! The salad was made from a variety of navel orange I found at Whole Foods that I also can’t remember the name of. Not that it matters….like it would show up in Kroger anyway. The orange itself was more darkly colored than a regular navel orange but not quite as intensely as a blood orange. If oranges had a “Ruby Red” variety, this would be it. I sliced the oranges into round flat slices and arranged them on a platter. I sliced avocado and arranged the slices on top of the oranges. Then sprinkled it all with pomegranate seeds. I squeezed some lemon over it all to keep the avocado from browning and then drizzled some dressing over the top. The dressing I made from a spoonful or so of tapenade, a small amount of the cheese that went into the mashed potatoes, the tail end of a bottle of walnut oil, and the tail end of a bottle of pear vinegar. I loved the flavor but I am not sure I like the aesthetics of the dressing. I think if I were to do it again, I would chop olives and sprinkle them on top with perhaps some toasted walnuts and go for a clear dressing. It was still a dramatic salad and tasted wonderful! The wine was an Anderson Valley Roederer sparkling wine as usual. (Tastes good for breakfast the next morning too.) The bread was homemade cottage cheese/dill bread. I suppose I should have made a rosemary foccacia to better complement the menu but I like cottage cheese/dill bread. So there.
Presents. As usual we were very blessed materially as well. Stan caved and bought Tim an Ipod which is clearly his favorite with a Disney bag coming in a close second. Chris left his favorite present unwrapped until the very end because what was actually a Lego chess set looked very much like….gross….clothes. Nicky has been continuously changing from one highly favored outfit to another. Her only regret is that she can’t wear them all at once. All of the children were thrilled with future Disneyworld spending money from the grandparents. Stan and I got a digital camera…yes we’ll probably actually take a post some pictures soon. You need to let these things age you know. I also received a replacement for my PDA that went belly-up several weeks ago. This new PDA also plays MP3 files and I have discovered a very welcome use for this new technological wonder. I have loaded the mediation music that I use in the Adoration chapel as well as my scriptural rosaries into my PDA. What was once a rather cumbersome armful of notebook/CD player can now be carried in my PDA. Cool beans! Stan got clothes. Badly needed clothes I might add. You ought to see what industrial strength bleach does to clothes and he does that on a regular basis. Periodically, I will say something to him about the state of his clothes and he will say “Oh, it’s ok, I wear my coveralls over these.”
I had grand plans to do a kind of spring cleaning this week. HA. I have been almost comatose since Christmas. I keep getting up to do something “productive” and the next thing I know, I am on my butt. I meant to do this blog entry all day yesterday and even that was too much. (Got that music loaded onto my PDA though….priorities. [grin])Today the heater repairman is here for the annual checkup so I had to get dressed before 9 am. What a trial.
So that’s the news that I can remember for now. Merry Christmas all.
