Daily Adventures

Jet asked for scallion pancakes for Christmas dinner, along with potstickers, so that's what we had.

The day's been good but tiring, though one thing didn't work out quite as planned, as two sets of uncles and the grandparents on John's side all bought Jet a 9" band saw, but it was damaged in shipping. The whole base is bent, so John's working on what to do about that.

The day was pretty quiet as, last night, Jet dressed in a suit and ushered at church. He got people their candles and programs, collected the Christmas offering, and served communion as well. It was the late service, so we didn't get home until midnight, and both boys were good enough to let me sleep in until 9, which is amazing self-control for a nine-year-old.

Which might be why he gets a band saw.

The day's been pretty quiet. Stockings, cinnamon rolls for breakfast, presents, and then a walk around the neighborhood while talking with family. There were lots of other presents, too, including a Wii, which Jet says, "We're the last family on Earth to get a Wii, but it's okay, I know what to do!"

*laughs* For technologically savvy beings, we do seem to go slow with the technology. Just getting what we need when it's second generation and a whole lot cheaper. It's only letting other people work out the bugs, first. And it's actually been a lot of fun working into a new system.

I got books, chocolate of all kinds, and a SodaStream (all right, I actually got it before Thanksgiving and blew that whole quart of root beer all over the kitchen with it, but it was actually a Christmas present. *laughs* And I use it every day now, so am very happy). Small, simple things are nice. Hope everyone that celebrated had a good Christmas.

Woke up to the smell of panettone-based French Toast and green chili turkey sausage. It was an amazing breakfast, and Jet was lovely and patient and eventhough there were stockings and presents under the tree, he carefully ate all of his breakfast before we went to open presents again.

( Cut short for flists as we had a pretty darn busy day. Tomorrow will be even more interesting. )

A very, very busy and productive day, felt like it was Far Too Much for most of the day.

I went nearly nuts with everything until we finally got to the Christmas Eve service. Then, suddenly everything settled down as there was, really, very little else to do.

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We've been busy, which probably surprises no one. *laughs* It's funny to write it all down and realize all that I've been doing when I thought I was getting "nothing" done... *laughs*

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Sometimes I just don't know how to say, "No."

About a month ago, the ladies that were suddenly taking over the church's Home Tour asked me to Decorate a 3' tall Christmas Tree for their silent auction. The money from the Tour and all the proceeds go to about a dozen different local charities. The OUR Center being a big benefactor, but there are also women's groups, children's support, and a bunch of other missions that we help out with.

Jet was on another origami kick, and he unwittingly dragged me along with him, and I decided to do the whole tree in origami ornaments, and do a knitted scarf in red as the skirting underneath. I think the tree's due tomorrow, and I'm still knitting, but the other bits can be seen in a little flickr album here. A few highlights were the umpteen piece dodecahedron, a couple of traditional Japanese chrysanthemum constructs with various types of stoppers, and some frogs and fishes for luck along with a few dozen traditional cranes in various types of paper.

Part of the insanity is that this morning John found out that our wireless hub had broken down completely. It was dead. We have a "only replace dead things" sort of policy right now for most of our big expenditures, and we only upgrade when we replace. The price on the N protocol wireless is now very, very good, so he simply replaced the hub. The upstairs computer is hardwired to our Internet connection. My replacement machine has the new protocol built in, and we only had to buy a plug in dongle for the laptop, so we're all good now, and the upload and download speeds are now phenomenal. I'm... amazed.

We've had a very, very busy few days, and a very white and gorgeous Christmas, but I'm a mite cabin-crazy at the moment, so it's good that John and I are going to be able to go to a movie this afternoon. :-)

The snowflake icon was from a cool Popular Science article Carl pointed me at on how to save a snowflake.

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Jet Meets Santa Claus 2005 This is right after Jet participated in his preschool's Holiday Program. I liked this picture better than the one of the two of them smiling at the camera because Jet, here, is explaining about his letter that he sent to Santa.

One of the many pictures of the season, but I liked this one the best. I think that Jet had no fear at all, much like the picture from last year, in Oregon, where the little tyke is just smiling away on Santa's lap.

One story the Jet told me this last week seems to emphasize the "good" Jet now is... he told John and I about a boy that had "punched him twice and hit him once" and we were pretty concerned. But then Jet said, "I didn't fight him back because he was just a preschool kid, not pre-K. I just told him to stop doing it and he did." Which translates to Jet realizing that the kid was younger than he was and he acted appropriately. We were very, very impressed and told Jet so in no uncertain terms. Jet kind of glowed with quiet pride for a while, too, which was very, very keen to see.

So it's been a pretty darned good holiday season.

Finally got in an account of Jet's preschool's Holiday Program.

Also put in a lot of stuff since work ended last Thursday, in case anyone wants to run through them in sequence.

Short version: Great Christmas at home with lots of friends. Jet loved all of his Christmas. I loved cooking massive amounts. :-) I got sick, and am better. Jet got sick early last week, and is gradually recovering with one hiccup the day after Christmas. We are resting well.

I hope everyone else had a very Merry Christmas.

Jet was amazed at what he found the next morning! Stuffed stockings! And TWO presents!

I was very glad. He'd gotten the fact that in "The Polar Express" all the kids only get one present from Santa. It's a good precident.

We had our stockings while John baked the cinnamon rolls. I got one of the Lego cars and Jet got the other, and we each had gotten the others' matching car for the Big Cars. Oop. So we swapped. That was good. Jet liked the candy and other small goodies he'd gotten. Yay!

He was so excited he could only eat half a cinnamon roll before begging to do presents. John and I took our time and enjoyed the fresh, yeasty rolls and freshly roasted coffee... Yum.

I could, however, feel a cold coming on and I wasn't that happy with that. So I took an Airborne before we hit the presents.

There were drifts of presents under the tree. We got a huge bounty today, and it was really impressive that Jet's pile of presents was decisively bigger than John's and mine combined. :-) That's the way it should be, I think. Hee.

Jet was very workmanlike in unwrapping. He was great, this year, and didn't insist on playing with everything before going onto the next one. Even it wasn't until 10:30 that he was finally finished and we were well and totally late for Christmas service. So we decided not to go. I was sick enough I decided to just go to sleep, and I slept three hours. In the midst of it, Jet hurtled into my room and said, "Mom, mom! Is it okay if I'm loud and the monster yells a lot of stuff?" "Uhm... sure. Go ahead..."

I didn't hear a thing. John had to come in and wake me up and ask if there was something he could help with. I rattled off the first thing off my head, and he went down to start that while I blearily got myself together and got dressed. I decongested myself and Tylenol'ed myself and then went down and hit the menu, hard.

There was a lentil-nut loaf to be made, dressing with meat and veg, the rolls to make and rise and bake, the turkey to reheat, and two kinds of gravy to make, all before 5. So I had a time line all laid out of what could be done when. I prepped both dressings and the loaf, both to bake for the last bit of time. The turkey gravy came next, as it gets silky if I slow simmer it for an hour or more. Then the rolls were quick and easy to roll out since they could sit out to warm up for me. They rose nicely while I took a quick shower.

Then people arrived. 12 adults and 9 kids. It was great. We had a house full of fun people with little kids all occupying each other in the basement by 4:30. Mei made astonishingly good potstickers for everyone for appetizers, and then the food started flowing to the board. We'd set up our granite table to hold all the food, and it did beautifully. All the drinks, hot cider, wine, beer, and water were on the central island. Folks had brought jello fruit salad, some white asparagus, salad, desserts, mashed potatoes (with some on the side with red and green food coloring), and it was wonderful. The rolls were nearly burnt, but not quite, and they were still warm by the time everything else hit the table. Wow.

So everyone sat down at once and ate. The kids were brought up from the basement and they all sat at their table at one time! My gosh! I even got a picture of them! :-)

I got to sit down with everyone, too. That was quite the treat. The kids behaved beautifully, so nearly all the adults got to eat with the adults as well. And those that didn't spelled each other and got some adult time, which was good for all of us. When the kids were done eating, they all ran down to the basement again, and had a great time trying to wreck the train and slide everything but themselves down the tiny wood slide down there.

I ate quite happily, and then started the dessert. Fermented rice with mandarine oranges and mochi rice balls filled with sesame seed paste was the offering besides the more American traditional stuff that two of the other moms had brought. Most of the parents there were either Asian, married to an Asian, or had adopted an Asian child. So even the adults who had never tried this kind of things before were curious enough to at least try it to see if they liked it. Most did! That was cool. Ivy, a little Chinese girl who had come to Bonnie and Fred this last fall, dug into hers like there was no tomorrow, and made coo'ing sounds at the balls. Though, admittedly, she did the same at the Cool Whip blobs she could pick up with her fingers. Hee.

It was a great evening. Everyone had fun. Tonya helped out with some of the cleaning up when most everyone else had left, and we'd done a good enough job of planning that most of it was dishwasher work. John got one load started early, so we could talk a little more, and then we got the second load in soon after everyone had left.

When I asked Jet what he'd liked best about Christmas, at first he said, "The presents." But then he thought a little and said, "But really I liked the whole thing. Every bit of it."

Amen.

After six months of near constant use I finally broke my Mr. Coffee ECMP40, and it was the lame, tiny bit of plastic holding the power switches that broke, not any of the working parts of the machine itself. It was still under warrentee, but I spent only $60 on it, and the shipping and hassel didn't seem worth it. So I had John take it apart. One special bolt had to just be drilled out, but everything else came apart quite neatly, and we found the offending, sadly weak single support of the on and off switches.

Jet watched with great interest. "Why are you breaking it?" he asked, and he got a pretty good explanation of the difference between "Breaking" and "Taking apart carefully so that it can go back together later."

I think he got it. Hoorah!

Luckily, I'd gotten my two drinks out of the beast before it finally gave up the ghost. John was able to get it apart, diagnose it and suggest a fix. I approved the fix, and John carefully packed up all the parts as the last part of clearing the decks for my mise en place for tomorrow's dinner.

Yes, Virginia, Liralen cooks her turkey the day BEFORE Christmas, so it is ready and beautiful for the day.

I'm learning a lot from Mr. Bourdain about how to prep food so that it's beautiful and ready to serve and I still have the time to sit with my guests and enjoy their company. Plus, a stock cooked for just about ever is nothing to sneeze at, either, for richness and taste.

So I roasted my turkey in the middle of the day. A 20 pounder, stuffed with onion, sage, celery, and apples in big, chunks, over a moat of chicken broth. Jet watched his videos. We played some video games. I started with the beast on its breast, and after 30 minutes at high temp, an hour at low, John and I did the amusing feat of turning the whole thing over, and letting it roast the right way up until it was 10 degrees from done, and then I turned the heat back up. It came out bronzed and beautiful, crisp, sizzling, and tender and juicy to the bone. The drippings were caramelized and sizzling from the fats, and I used most of my store of brown chicken stock to get it off the pan and into a metal bowl.

We ate leftovers for dinner, to finish clearing out the fridge. Then I carved that bird down to the carcass, arrainging everything on a beautiful turkey platter John had bought years ago. All but half a breast fit on the platter, and the half a breast I put into its own storage box. The carcass, vegitables, herbs, and spices went into a lot of water into a stock pot, and I got that to a boil and then down to a simmer in the Stockpot. Then we went to the 6pm Christmas Eve Service.

John wore pants. I could hears, all across the pews, "He's wearing PANTS! Do you believe it?" He was also wearing his Scottish sweater, a tweedy grey green from the wool of sheep that ate so much seaweed their wool turned that faint shade of green.

Jet was a little antsy during the service, but lasted it out. He watched us sing, eventhough he'd sung so many songs during the caroling we'd done last week, he wasn't into doing the impromptu pagent that everyone else did. They found volunteer Mary and Joseph, and had choirs of angels and herds of sheperds from the audience. It was fun and relaxed, and we sang the familiar caroles. It was comforting for me, too, in a way.

Afterwards we went to a friends' house for "Cookie Decorating" and the house was filled with girls younger than Jet, and their parents. There was one other boy there that was exactly Jet's age, but he kept trying to get Jet into trouble and Jet finally just wrinkled his nose at the other guy and started playing with every car and truck he could find in the house. Jet and John ended up making four cookies and we took them home with us. John and Jet then setup the cookies, milk, and carrots and Jet went merrily to bed with me. He slept easily. Whew.

That's when I realized that I hadn't made the cinnamon roll dough, yet, and it had to go through a rise before I could shape them for the overnight rise. Oops. So I had John warm the oven while I used the Big mixer to get it all together. It went into the just warm oven to rise, while I made dinner roll dough for tomorrow and stuffed that into the refrigerator, too.

Then John and I did parent duties (;-)) and went to bed with cinnamon rolls dancing in my head.