Ahhh...the holidays

I'm glad it's over. Thanksgiving is nice and everything, but damn, it's a lot of work. The turkey was a little dry. Despite my best efforts at basting and tucking butter under the skin, it was a wee bit dry. Everything else turned out well though. My neices were great, wanting to help with everything that was being made. We made mulled cider before the rest of the family came, and they enjoyed putting in all the spices. They gave my mother-in-law (their grandmother) some when she got there. She said "this is good, but it would have been better with a cinnamon stick added" They said "We did put in a cinnamon stick". Then she said "Well, cloves would have really tasted good" They said "We did put in cloves". Then she said "well, I always put orange in mine and they said "we did put in orange and we sliced up ginger". Even though I think the woman enjoys coming to our house, she still finds borderline nasty things to say. Or maybe I'm just paranoid. My husband smoked a turkey that turned out...strange. When he took it out of the smoker, the entire outside was charred black. But the inside was done. A tad bit on the dry side, but not bad. The entire family took pictures of his charred turkey.

Friday I took the girls to breakfast at an old Pharmacy lunch counter in Columbia that has suprisingly good food. They couldn't get over that we were eating in a pharmacy. Then we went to antique stores where they proceeded to compete in who could spot the most aprons. I bought two. And I bought a pair of Mr. and Mrs. Santa Salt and Pepper shakers. Then we went to get the tree. We didn't manage to get that up until the evening because of some difficulties in getting the trunk cut straight.

So Saturday we decorated....all day. I wish I had as much energy as kids do. The 8 year old likes to dance. And she danced around the living room ( in between hanging ornaments on the tree) all day. I have a pottery barn holiday cd collection that I got a few years ago, full of Christmas music from the 40s and 50s....Eartha Kitt, and Bing Crosby, and Louis Armstrong....and the girl (with a Christmas tree skirt wrapped around her waist) proceeded to act out dramatic dance numbers...with props and dogs as dance partners...kicking and leaping and splits and draping herself dramatically on the sofa....for hours. Even the twelve year old said "must be nice to have that much energy".

And yesterday was outside decorating. I made a wreath and cut down a few small mulberry trees and silver maples (that needed to be removed anyway) and put them in pots and covered their branches with white lights. A vintage santa and some wrapped up empty boxes on the front porch completed the scene. So now I can start christmas shopping. Whew.

And the seed catalogs keep coming. I'm so tempted to sit down and make lists of what I want to grow next year. But this is a task best saved for the long, gray days of January. Anyway, it was a good holiday, but I'm tired, and glad to be back to the normal grind.