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10:24 a.m. - 2005-12-26 Christmas 2005...A RecapWell...another year in the can. I purchased my first Christmas gift on August 8 and was pretty much finished by the end of November...wrapping and all. I was going to have a meaningful, relaxed Christmas, yet from Friday on was a whirlwind of activity that left my back and my buttox aching from standing and cooking and climbing too many stairs. At some point last week I decided that I would sally forth and bake our family's, passed along for generations, Nut Roll. It is a huge chore and I worked from 6PM to 2AM to produce 7, not so pretty, but yummy anyway, Nut Rolls. The first batch had yeast that was 1/2 dead and didn't rise well and I added too much flour and the dough didn't want to roll. The 2nd batch had very vigorous yeast. In an effort to enliven the yeast, I fed it with a teaspoon of sugar and created a monster dough that kept on rising and threatened to take over the kitchen. At one point I raised the towel to look into the bowl and it groweled at me. This batch looked like Zepplins and grew to proportions in the oven of which I have never seen in a Nut Roll. Both batches were way too brown, but in the end, they yielded the wonderful taste our family grew up having with butter on Christmas morning. Christmas Eve, I was taking a cooking break and UPS pulled up. The driver delivered two dozen beautiful roses from my daughter's boyfreind, Manny. They are gorgeous and I am not used to receiving such a wonderful surprise. It reminded me that I am a princess and so I put on my tiara. Michelle, Manny, Linda and Don and Nephew's extrodinaire, Don, Sam and Joe came as well as Cousin Chris to join Mike, Mom and I for a raucious, Christmas Eve, full of chatter, laughter and fart jokes. I made up a game involving crude, twisted Christmas tunes and a present wrapped in many layers and taped to death with duct tape which we passed around and the person who was "it" had to open the package with thick gloves on. Each player had one twisted tune's time to try. In the end, I didn't wrap it good enough and it only got through 4 people before the game was over. Next year I will wrap it even better and we will use oven mits. One other thing I learned is not to make so many appetizers. I pulled out all my fancy appetizer recipes and found that all I really needed were cocktail meatballs...little weiners with dough and cold cut sandwiches with potato salad. I will remember to do this next year. It is easy on the cook, and won't leave a fridge full of leftovers to pig out on. Christmas day, I got up early, prepared a crockpot Christmas dinner for Mom and Mike and left for Aunt Marilyn's house to join sissy and her family, Uncle Jim, Aunt Lorraine and cousin Jennifer. Aunt Marilyn always knocks herself out to put on a spread that would equal the finest restaurant but it is not the comfortable, lay back and forget your manners type of affair our Christmas Eve is...in other words, there aint no fart jokes at this party. Before I go on, I must explain two things. My sister is easily embarrassed and Aunt Lorraine seems easily offended. We sometimes refer to her as the Ice Queen and for some reason are very attentive to not do anything to get the evil eye. Aunt Lorrain's family makes Perogies for Christmas. They are hard to make and time consuming and I have great respect for this endeavor because it is similar to the above mentioned Nut Roll. In other words, things like Nut Roll and homemade Perogies are to be treated like honored guests at the feast and the creator of these special culinary gifts is to be rewarded with gushing and the mutterings of "mmmmmmmmm" with every bite. Go ahead and take as many as you want, but never ever ever waste a Perogie. Since there was so much gushing over these Perogies, 11 year old Joe figured they must be the equivilent of ambrosia and helped himself to a plateful. He must have had 4 or 5 of these on his plate. We all sat down to dinner and after taking one bite, he announced loudly while holding this plate piled with Perogies up in the air, directly in front of Aunt Lorraine and announced. "Does anybody want these? I HATE Perogies" A hush fell over the room and Linda turned the shade of the red ornaments hanging on Aunt Marilyn's tree. Happy New Year my friends. P. I. Yarnsmith
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