December 28th, 2007 - Christmas report
I should first mention that I caught a bad cold for Solstice which I gave to Eric for Christmas. Maggie caught a lesser version of it than both of us. I spent most of Fri-Mon on the couch or in bed and Eric did the same Mon-Thursday. We actually intended to do a bit more than we did, but have not actually missed anything, I don’t think.
A) Holiday decor: Although we did buy a tree, against my recommendation, everything turned out fine. The cats never climbed it (as far as we know, at least), possibly because of the very close branches. Maggie and the pets quickly caught on that they weren’t supposed to play with it which was a relief. We put lights on it right away (the 15th), but never got around to putting on more decorations and realized we really liked it with just the lights! Which, by the way, are LEDs, so we haven’t turned them off in nearly 2 weeks! (2 strands were the perfect amount for the tree.) Maggie did hang the 5 ornaments received as gifts on Christmas day. The only problem is that the tree is quite dry and drops needles constantly.
On Christmas Eve or Christmas day, I finally put up the two window light things (Santa and a snowflake). Later, I put three candles on the piano, although we only lit two of them and only on two evenings. (Kept forgetting them.)
And we put the snowpeople Eagles wreath Eric got from his Mom last year on the front door.
B) Holiday food: Since I was sick, I didn’t make any more cookies. (We plan some for this weekend, however.) My bread paddle came on Saturday, and Monday I made banana bread for Christmas–unfortunately, I put in too much sugar (the amount the recipe calls for rather than the 50-75% I usually use) and it tasted funny. The bananas were a bit dry, too. We did make split pea soup on Xmas Eve and had it Xmas day for one meal. Maggie and I are still eating the olive spread from a couple weeks ago, too. Luckily, I had the auction-won Chex mix and Chex dessert plus a plate of cookies from Sean and Elissa to get us through as well.
C) Holiday gifts: Maggie received some lovely wooden toys this year, in particular, a handmade train from Gram and PopPop (my parents). She also loves the set of play food; we might bring her kitchen in from the porch to go along with them. Her other favorite toy is a kids digital camera from Grandma Johnson. We asked for this for her, but I didn’t realize it takes 5 batteries (one lithium it comes with plus 4 AAs. Aack. I finally got away from regular batteries for my digital camera and now I have to buy them for her. And I bet she uses them up faster than I did. It even says to not use rechargables in it.). We didn’t have 4 AAs in the house until last night, but she’s been pretending to take pictures all week anyway.
Grandma also gave her 5 other toys all requiring batteries. We aren’t going to put them in the puzzle and we put away the “karaoke” toy immediately. (It hooks up to the TV, too. So a 4x whammy–batteries, TV, kids music, noise. Not our cup of tea!) A musical snowglobe (except it’s a plastic thing and there’s air inside so it doesn’t work like a real snowglobe and the snow only flies when it’s turned on). And a singing Santa. I know MIL finds this stuff cute and has it around her house, but I don’t understand why she doesn’t get how much we can’t stand it. Oh well. We’ll donate one (she never sends along receipts, unfortunately), didn’t show Maggie how to run one (Santa), and will get rid of the snowglobe at the end of the season.
She also gave her a number of clothing items–a shirts/pants set, a sweater (although it looks long enough to be a dress so I might pair it with tights for church), and a frog towel/robe that she loves wearing around the living room. My parents also gave her some clothes–two PJs, summer pants, and 2 t-shirts. All the clothes are quite cute!
Eric got just what he wanted for Christmas: a slew of gift cards! (Also a book and some coffee.) I got a Boxer calendar, a lap quilt (possibly MIL made it?), and a box of food goodies–I had enjoyed some interesting spreads at my parents last Feb and indeed bought a few myself over the year but don’t tend to find much at the local groceries. Now I have plenty to last me all year, I just have to remember to use them! (I forgot to use most of those I bought this year. Partially because I didn’t like one so it’s still in the fridge and I hate to open something new. But I should! Since I won’t eat the one I don’t like anyway.)
So, overall, a pretty simple holiday. Mostly planned that way, although also forced due to illness. Once again, however, I’m glad that I didn’t have major plans since illness would have gotten in the way. It was nice to know I could just sleep away the days without worrying about things not getting done. (Oh, I did want to do some cleaning before the holidays, but I settled for doing it the last couple days instead. Our floors have been mopped!)