An Uncommon Christmas

Ever since James has been able to telework, he's been volunteering to work Christmas. In past years he has gotten holiday pay, but with the reorganization, that isn't happening anymore. So with the mandate from right before Thanksgiving still in place—with him only working 24 hours a week—it was essential that he work anyway to assure three days' pay.

So we were in bed early Christmas Eve, and James was at his desk promptly at eight. He had no calls, not even a person who had called the wrong number and was looking for support for his new Lenovo laptop, which would have been transferred because James works with blade servers. We basked in the Christmas lights, listened to Christmas music, I watched The House Without a Christmas Tree, and a little after noon, started cooking a turkey.

Now previously when he's teleworked at Christmas, James had ended work at five, we would have already been dressed, and we would have headed to the Butlers for Christmas dinner. But Lin had been in the hospital over Thanksgiving, so Pat and Alex volunteered to do Christmas dinner instead. They live in Lawrenceville, nearly an hour's drive away. By the time we had gotten out of the house and there it would have been 6:30, enough time to gobble and run so James could be ready to work the next day. What use was going all that way to have to stuff your face quickly and not get to spend any time relaxing and chatting.

So we had already planned our dinner: we would buy turkey thighs, have them with potatoes. I found a package of huge thighs that would provide us with Christmas dinner and even enough leftovers to make a sandwich or two later on. This changed when we took a trip to Sam's Club and found an 11.5 pound turkey I dubbed "Clifton" (after Clifton Road where CDC headquarters is located). Okay, so James would monitor the phones and I would get my first turkey-cooking lesson.

Anyway, back up a few days. We went to Hair Day, and found out that Mel and Phyllis were not going to Christmas dinner either; they are in their 70s and driving that far in the dark was daunting. Mel was wondering if we wanted to go out somewhere to eat with them on Christmas evening. So impulsively I invited them to Christmas dinner and we changed the time to evening.

Yes, we had our Jewish friends over for Christmas.

It was very informal. We completely forgot to cook the carrots we added to the menu. I started the turkey early because even being in the refrigerator for three days it was still frozen. I started it uncovered and had to tent the wings after just an hour and the breast after two hours. It was basted and rebasted in wine. However, the oven came through again and the bird was thoroughly cooked and ready by the time our guests arrived. We ate on paper plates and had Christmas music on softly in the background, and were talking about the old days when we were in school. Tucker mooched food, and Snowy sang happily in the background.

After they left James put up the rest of the carcass and only then did we exchange gifts. Because money was short this year we only bought one thing for each other, and knew what we were getting. I bought James an organizer for his modeling desk. It's specially made for modelers and has a ruled workspace and places to put paintbrushes and other accessories. He gave me a Cricut lightbox (which, thankfully, was on sale at Michael's on Black Friday). I've been wanting a lightbox for some time now.

And so we wandered off to bed at the usual time, full of Christmas and friendship and lots of turkey.

The Christmas Tree Distraction

Well, it certainly was an interesting day. Not in the Chinese sense, just...different.

The original plan for today was that James would go off to his club meeting Christmas party, and I would have my annual orgy decorating the tree. Well, Atlanta had about eight inches (at least) of snow yesterday. This is nothing in New England and Michigan and Minnesota and up in the "great white north" over the border in Canada. But the folks up there have snow tires, snow plows, snow shovels, snow blowers, plentiful sand trucks, and enough snow yearly that they know how to drive in it. (Well, judging by the accidents on the news, at least they should!) Your average Atlantan has no experience with snow. He may have all-weather tires but no snow experience. Plus the ground always starts as warm, so there is always ice under the snow. I don't know about you, but my car is not Sonia Heine or Michelle Kwan, and neither is any other vehicle in the metro area.

So we had been snowed in yesterday and it snowed more during the night, and we woke up to a beautiful white world. It had snowed so much the bird feeders were blocked with snow and there were 7 1/2 inches of snow on the deck. James' party was canceled. Instead he continued working on his computer, which died in the middle of a Windows update. It's just...stuck. So I set up an account for him on my computer, in case he needed it.

My project began when James and I cleared the rocking chair and other things out of the corner, I vacuumed, and then I commenced bringing the four parts of the Christmas tree upstairs. After a brief gaffe when I put the wrong part into the stand assembly, I got the tree together and plugged it in.

Arggh! Half the string in the center section was out! Now what would I do? This is our practically brand new tree, the one we got at Kmart in 2014. It didn't look terribly awful, but there was a dark spot around the "waist" of the tree, and this has never been an overly bright tree. I supposed I could have tried putting light colored ornaments (the white and pink satin balls, for example, the snowman ornament, the unicorn in a stocking, etc.) on that dark section, but I was pretty upset.

In the meantime James noticed he was down to six of his homemade burritos. He had meat and beans, but needed wraps and cheese.

By this time it was noon, the sky had cleared and turned a brilliant blue, and the snow was melting rapidly in the streets and was falling in blobs from tree branches and other tall structures. People were out walking. We called Hobby Lobby to see if they had a gadget called a Lightkeeper Pro; they did, and we had them hold it for us. Then we got in the truck and drove there via the main roads, which were pretty clear. There wasn't a ton of traffic, but what there was was brisk.

We picked it up and then went to Publix, where we did the shopping, including ingredients for the burritos and the twofers. We were starving by the time we got home because it was wayyyy after two, but I only cut off a little of the loaf of French bread before I girded my courage and tried the Lightkeeper Pro.

I've been hearing about this gadget for years in various Christmas groups, and most of the time it's positive. It looks like a plastic gun with several parts, runs on included batteries, and has a couple of different ways of correcting Christmas light string (only miniature lights) problems, the most common being the "quick fix trigger method." There is a socket connector at the front of the LP. You pick out any light socket in the part of a light string that does not work, pull out the light bulb, and plug the LP into that empty socket, then you press the trigger. It works by overriding a burned-out filament and fixing the shunt that make electricity flow through the string. If it doesn't work after thirty presses, there is an alternative method called an audible voltage detector, which reads like voodoo to me.

And it worked! It needed only about three pulls of the trigger to fix the string. There were also two burned-out bulbs which I moved to the back of the tree.

I spent the rest of late afternoon decorating the tree, interrupted by some supper between the ornaments and the tinsel. I watched Christmas Is, The City That Forgot About Christmas, For Better or For Worse: the Bestest Present, For Better or For Worse:The Christmas Angel, It's a Wonderful Tiny Toons Christmas Special, and finally, Raggedy Ann and Andy in the Great Santa Claus Caper. And then about four or five episodes of Rehab Addict during the tinseling.

The tinsel took forever. I hope I never have to put icicles on a tree at night again. Even with the lamps on it was hard to see to layer the branches and the static electricity was appalling. It's bad enough that these modern icicles are so thin. They kept whipping around and attaching themselves to everything but the tree.

But finally it was time for the final touch: the manger scene under the tree.

It became immediately apparent that we were going to have no more luck keeping Tucker's tail away from the tinsel than in previous years, so the baby gate is back up in front of the tree.

As a reward for creating colorful sparkle, there was gingerbread with whipped cream for dessert and a viewing of Mercy Mission: the Rescue of Flight 771, followed by a John Denver and the Muppets chaser.

Two Days of Christmas

Had a busy Christmas weekend, starting yesterday when we were expecting company: James' mom and sister were coming up for a Christmas dinner. I believe this is the first time they have been up since we had Thanksgiving dinner in 2006. James was up early to put our little turkey, all nine pounds of it, into the oven. He tried it Alton Brown's way: brown it for a half hour at 500°F, and then lower it to 325 and let it cook until it was done. In the meantime he made a gravy with the neck and giblets, and stuffing. (This gravy came out thick and rich and wonderful. Like Aunt Meg's gravy in Twister, it was a food group all its own, especially since James put pureed vegetables in it.) I finished cleaning up and made room for folks to sit down and primped the bathroom a little, and even went downstairs and put the new tags on our license plates and our new registrations on the sun visors. The turkey was done at noon and we had a chance to relax—and nibble on it a little, of course!—before Mom and Candy arrived.

We had an informal lunch around the coffee table, with Mom bagging a tray table. The turkey came out well except that one side was a bit underdone, another sign that the oven is not working properly. The stuffing was soft and flavorful. Mom and Candy had brought scalloped potatoes, green beans, corn casserole, and a grape salad. There was Christmas music on in the background and the tree lights were all on. After lunch we exchanged gifts. James got a nifty airplane clock and an airplane wine bottle holder and some sangria. I got a bunch of bird related things, including a rustic frame, a big stand-up sparrow in a Santa hat, and another little bird. We have been giving them a different type of food basket every year: once it was Italian, once it was soup, etc. This year it was a "garnish" basket, things to spice up meals: salad fixings, finishing sauce, Asian noodles, ice cream topping, garlic dip mix to go into butter to make garlic bread, sprinkles for ice cream and cake, etc. We also gave Candy an Eeyore mug and a Cowboys Beanie Baby for her birthday two weeks ago, and Mom a Robert Ludlum novel.

They headed out before it got dark. We gave them the rest of the white meat and kept the dark; James put the drumsticks in the freezer, but as the shadows lengthened, we had a light dinner of the rest of the leavings: I just put hunks of turkey meat and some gravy on two Kings Hawaiian rolls and ate those; James made a little plate with stuffing. Then we hurried out to go look at Christmas lights; we've been going so "late" (like 8 p.m.) that people already have turned them off! This is absolutely flabbergasting to me because we always keep our Christmas lights on all night: Mom said it would help the Holy Family find our house. (I also keep ours on New Year's Eve and at Twelfth Night.)

The light situation was a bit iffy. I didn't want to go far from home because James was feeling a bit off, so we just stayed around the neighborhood. Not a whole lot of festive folks around. Not sure if it's the political climate, the economy, or if people just aren't celebrating. I do notice, though, that a lot of the newer homes have their living rooms at the rear of the house, so you see fewer big Christmas trees in front windows. We did have some luck going up toward downtown Smyrna; while the Park development seemed to have several fewer decorations than last year, two new plats were well dressed. We saw swooping stars, large decorations that looked like giant illuminated bulbs, classic decorations (white candles, green wreaths, red bows), those new "star shower" things, lights outlining windows, lights along paths. Also checked out the Craftsman-style homes on King Springs Drive. I would love to have one of those. (Yeah, I know. House envy. But it's more because they tickle all the nostalgic bones in my body.) However, we didn't go to Dunleith to see if they did luminaria this year, or to see of the big house on Cunningham Drive had turned into what we call "the wedding cake house," it is so draped in lights.

Finally, back home, I took Tucker out, and then we settled down and watched The Homecoming: A Christmas Story. Once that finished, we put on the news and then watched Midnight Mass from the Vatican. This year NBC did not cut it off at 1 a.m., but showed the whole thing. And since we were up anyway, we opened presents. I had bought James a new Ott Light for his model work, and four books (one about the Berlin airlift, another about World War II films, the new book about Pearl Harbor defending Admiral Kimmel, and a book about the World War II Memorial). He bought me War of the Roosevelts, a nifty metal barrette, a "thesaurus" t-shirt, a great Cumberbatch-as-Doctor Strange poster, and a Steiff budgie. (Yes, a Steiff budgie, blue with a white face. I knew they made more than bears, but not birds!)

Needless to say, we slept in on Christmas morning, and then James was up before me, having walked Tucker and made himself some breakfast. I made myself an eggnog to have with my oatmeal and yogurt, and spelled James making his special dessert, caramel sauce over oranges. He also made corn to take to the Butlers, and we brought the green beans and mushrooms left over from Christmas Eve dinner. I'd had Christmas music on earlier, but while the oranges were soaking in their sauce, I watched The House Without A Christmas Tree and then A Christmas Memory with Geraldine Page.

I also gave Tucker the second half of his Christmas gift. Last night I gave him his new plush blanket. I meant to bring it out from the spare room and surprise him in the living room, but I forgot to close the gate and he followed me in. I held up the blanket—he had chewed holes in his old one—and his eyes widened and he reared up on his hind legs and grabbed at it with his forelegs. When I did give it to him, he shook it like a rat and proceeded to growl and roughhouse with it until he finally got it in a lumpy pile and laid on it. This morning I gave him the fox. This is a non-stuffed toy because he eviscerates stuffed ones. He had the squeakers that are sewn at either end killed within an hour.

We headed to the Butlers about 2:30 and were still one of the first to arrive. As always, it was a wonderful time. There seemed to be a running gag today: someone would walk in and see A Christmas Story running on the television (first Charles, then Juanita, then Alex) and say, "You know, I've never seen this movie." Wow! Anyway, we snacked on Lin's piecrust pastries and apple and cheese and a relish tray until it was time for dinner, which was turkey, steak, pot roast and ham, with mashed potatoes, biscuits and butter, carrots, and our beans and corn. Later there were two pies and our oranges for dessert (they were lovely; I had three helpings). Once again, we did not see Sylvester the new kitten (who is now an adolescent cat), but we understand he's already fond of climbing the Christmas tree. They get him down by turning on the Death Star tree topper that Phyllis gave them. Later on we exchanged gifts. James got a nice warm throw and movie tickets, and I had two Doctor Who adult coloring books with pencils and a mug. We headed home around eight, full of food and friendship, and snuggled by the tree (as we couldn't very well snuggle by the fire, as it was 70 bloody degrees out; I'd walked in the door earlier and called "Happy Easter!") until bedtime.

Finding Christmas in the Nicest Places

Since I spent yesterday doing laundry and feeling a little homesick, I thought I'd try to do better today. After sleeping until eight, I had breakfast and walked the dog, then gathered up a couple of coupons and drove into Buckhead. Traffic was very light and I was able to check out the wreaths, bows and garlands along the route. I went through the little village of Vinings, all decked out in garland and bows and candy canes and wreaths, and thereafter the route is tree-lined with large homes with lush lawns and some unusual decorations: someone had an inflatable Snoopy, Santa in an airplane...and Santa riding an elephant?

The parking lot of the Barnes & Noble was crowded, however, mostly because it's next to a Publix. I managed to round a corner just as someone was pulling out, which took care of my parking problem. The bookstore was fairly busy. I'd promised myself I would just go in and pick out the book I wanted, but when I go into a bookstore all promises go out the window. I trolled the magazines quickly and picked up "Taproot" just to get it out of my system (a lot of the text is gardening/cooking, neither which remotely interest me, although I'm drawn to self-sufficiency—go figure), checked out the new books one more time, and then bought a copy of Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything (the illustrated verson). The cashier and I had a nice chat and then I was off to the real purpose of my trip, a visit to Richard's Variety Store.

If you live in or near Atlanta and have never been to Richard's...what's the matter with you? It's a wonderful store. I remember taking Jen and Meggan there when they visited. If you remember old five-and-ten-cent stores with fondness, you need to go to Richard's. They stock an eclectic collection of books (a lot of humorous or offbeat ones, plus a neat group of republished classic children's books like Make Way for Ducklings and Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel), cards, toys, glassware/cooking items, and along the side and back wall, hardware items and housewares, some that I've never seen anywhere else. For instance, they had something that was a plug at one end and a light bulb socket at the other. I may have to get some for the library, since you can't see in the first bay with the overhead light out of order. I found a nice slotted dipper for getting meat out of the crock pot without the juice that goes with it, and bought a new meat thermometer and a whole huge spool (2300 feet!) of baker's twine. But at the back I found something we really needed. Both the plugs in the sinks in the master bath don't work. James' has simply become detached from the gadget that makes it go up and down. The gadget in my sink appears to be broken. Anyway, James has to watch it when he takes the copious amount of pills he's prescribed or one or two escape down the drain occasionally. He's been putting a paper towel there. I found these metal inserts with holes in them, like a tiny colander, called "crumb cups" which fit snugly into the drain hole. No more losing pills (or insulin needles, for that matter).

The store was filled with mostly women and children, but some men, buying stocking stuffers. This is a good place for them. They have Hot Wheels cars, plastic fantasy animals, gag gifts, small stuffed animals, gadgets for your bike, playing cards, and any number of small things like that. The floors are old linoleum, and there is still a horse you can take a ride on for a quarter.

(I nearly bought a beautifully illustrated copy of Wind in the Willows. I've seen versions where the animals look real, or the illos are just line drawings. These were lovely, very Beatrix Potter-like. But the book was abridged. 😞 )

I came home via Northside Drive and the freeway, and instead of getting off at Spring Road as I am wont, went up one more exit so I could check out the new Ollie's Bargain Outlet off Windy Hill Road. My sister-in-law was right: Ollie's did have small calendars. I usually buy an inexpensive 5"x5" calendar, value about a dollar, to keep next to my computer and tick off my paydays and what I have to pay on each one. This year neither Michael's nor Kmart had any. Every other place sells 7.5"x7.5" calendars, which are too large to fit in the space. Well, up front they had three-calendar packs: a wall calendar, a mini calendar, and a pocket calendar, all for $1.99. I got the lighthouse one. The mini is a tiny bit wider and an inch longer, but it was the width that was the problem and this would fit.

Came home and dumped all the stuff inside, and then really should have had lunch, but I was about fifteen minutes later than I wanted to be, so I grabbed a towel, the dog soap, and the dog, and hustled the last two down to Petco's dog-wash so Tucker will look smart and shiny when his Grandma and Aunt Candy visit. We were alone there at first, but then a woman came in with a golden Labrador and, just as Tucker was dry, a German Shepherd came in with his people, a mom and two kids. Tucker and the German Shepherd eyed each other with interest; it's just the one at the end of the street he doesn't like. Tucker was very good; I even took a chance and removed the restraining leash he was on to brush him properly and then dry him, and he was good as gold, didn't try to jump out of the tub or anything, and he sat quietly, although he hates the noise, as I dried him off.

We got home and waited for James, who had had a doctor's appointment at 1:45 and then was picking up stuff we needed for Saturday at Publix. It took him ages to get home because the store was so crowded. In a while we had our leftover steak for supper and watched the new "Holiday at Pops" concert that PBS broadcast this year. It was so good to see it! James and I remember watching it yearly on A&E television before they became a haven for misbegotten reality shows. I sang along during the sing-a-long and really enjoyed Justin Hopkins' singing. I followed with The Waltons episode "The Best Christmas." I remember this for a funny thing that happened a couple of weeks after it aired. There is a sequence where Curt and Mary Ellen are helping two frostbite victims, and are applying cold compresses, and then slowly warmer ones. Well, someone wrote a heated letter to "TV Guide" screaming that it was not the correct way to treat frostbite!!! Sure, not in 1976 when this aired, but it was the way you treated frostbite in the 1930s, when it took place! I laughed myself silly over that one.

We closed out the night with "Merry Christmas, Bogg" from Voyagers!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We think of it here as Willow's birthday*, so there isn't much "wearin' o' the green," especially since James is mostly Scottish and I'm Italian. :-) Been watching clips of St. Paddy's Day parades this morning, and reading Facebook posts, including nostalgic photos from the Providence Journal.

I've never been much on St. Patrick's Day as an adult, though, due to the emphasis on drinking to excess, but do remember with much nostalgia the programs at school, where we danced Irish jigs and cut out shamrocks to decorate the classroom, and, in junior high school, bought and wore green carnations. And, of course, you always wore green, even if it was just a pin or an armband. Surprisingly, the Atlanta PBS stations, which were overflowing with Irish specials last year, are devoid of anything similar this year except for an upteenth Celtic Thunder rerun and a series on Catholicism. (Yo! When do we get series two of Call the Midwife?)

Kinda blank in here since Epiphany, but frankly I haven't felt much like celebrating. Been going through an emotionally difficult time at work due to the reorganization, and, tiresomely, caught the flu over Valentine's Day week, so no celebration, no decorations, and no Valentine posts. Sleeping late seems to be the chief amusement desired here.

* We actually don't know when Willow was whelped. We got her on the last week of May, and they told us she was ten weeks old, so I counted back to a date I could remember. :-)  Schuyler has the same deal: she was just a new baby when I bought her on the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, so I counted back a month and picked out another date I could remember (April 23, St. George's Day and Shakespeare's birthday).

A Happy Thanksgiving Day

I skinned out of bed at quarter to nine to get a paper. While it struck me as slightly silly, as I could look through all the Black Friday ads online, I always like to get physical reference.

As I looked through the paper I watched the Macy's Thanksgiving parade. Much fun as always, and a great bit from the Broadway musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying starring Daniel Radcliffe and John Larroquette. The parade had a good variety of acts, including Neil Diamond singing "Coming to America." Didn't think much of the Tim Burton balloon, but then I'm not a Burton fan.

Following was the National Dog Show—a wire-haired fox terrier won; a mostly white one. Is it the year of Snowy? :-)

Then we gathered up the trash to put it out before taking our contributions—a sweet potato pie and corn casserole—to the Lucyshyns for Thanksgiving dinner. There was a full house of people, and we ate, chatted, watched football and skating, looked at Daniel's new Nook Tablet, and finally had dessert. We left a little after seven and wandered our long dark way home while listening to a Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me from a few weeks ago. When we went in the bedroom to change, I could hear music playing because I had left NPR on. It was Beethoven's Sixth...and just hearing that made me want to play The White Seal, which uses that lovely piece to such good effect. So I did...and A Cricket in Times Square, too.

4 Days Before Christmas

Since James worked on Saturday, today was his compensatory day off. We slept late because we stayed up last night hoping to see the lunar eclipse. This one was notable because it was taking place at the same time as the winter solstice. By the time it started, I was walking around with my eyes half-open, but nevertheless went out on the deck with a camera to try my luck, luck because light clouds were scudding in ahead of the potentially rainy weather.

As the eclipse began, we had some good glimpses of the moon being "eaten" by a shadow, but my aim was shaky because I had to hold the camera overhead, so I went back inside for my tripod. Of course, now that I had the camera secure the clouds thickened and gaps between them became further and further apart. I did get a few pics, which I posted on Facebook later on, but we never did see the full eclipse. We got into bed about three and fell into deep sleep until 10:13.

After breakfast, we headed out to the hobby shop because James hadn't visited there Saturday, and he wanted to wish Rusty a merry Christmas. James Corley (owner of the store) had his little dog with him, a Lhasa Apso named Leela. What a little cutie, with big brown eyes. He had her behind a baby gate, but when I saw the big eyes I said, "Oh, what a cute little puppy!" and she got on her hind legs and wagged her tail and did cute to perfection.

After we left the hobby shop we went to the Borders at Merchant's Walk to buy the very last of our Christmas gifts, armed with coupons. The store was packed; I've never seen a bookstore that crowded except during a signing or the release of a book like Harry Potter—the line snaked past several aisles of the store!

I also ran into Michaels to get something with my 50 percent off coupon, and then we cut through the back to get to Town Center. We had Barnes & Noble coupons and wandered about happily amongst the other shoppers for a bit before heading to Golden Corral. Neither of us had eaten lunch and by now it was after four, so we had our supper. I was very pleased to find a whole turkey on the buffet so you could get dark meat! Also had some pot roast and a bit of steak, plus some cantaloupe and a small slice of chocolate cake.

James gets small gifts for a few co-workers every year, so he stopped at Hobbytown to pick them up, and then we headed home. I wrapped the rest of the gifts and finally cleaned up the spare bedroom, which has spent time since December 5 looking like the shipping room at Amazon.com, since I was wrapping a few gifts a day. James got his dough out of the refrigerator and baked the Splenda and spice cookies as well as chocolate ones.

And later we watched A Christmas Story.

"Christmas, Christmas, Wonderful Christmas!"

Had a nice sleep in yesterday courtesy of the Big Boss, but I'd really intended to go to Harry's earlier. It wasn't quite a Dickens Christmas there—

"...[t]here were great, round, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence. There were ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish Friars, and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. There were pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers" benevolence to dangle from conspicuous hooks, that people's mouths might water gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves; there were Norfolk Biffins, squab and swarthy, setting off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after dinner..."

but it was crowded with folks piling their carts high with goodies for the feast. I also dropped in to Publix for some dessert goodies for tomorrow, and started next year's shopping at Michael's.

I had hardly arrived home and done laundry and vacuuming and other minimal chores when I realized I did not have enough salad dressing for the salad we were bringing to dinner tomorrow, so I nipped out to Food Depot—not as crowded as I feared—and found it, surprisingly, first try!

Then I was finally ready to sit down, with Schuyler's cage next to me, to her surprise and wonder, and I had lunch—yummy salad greens, milk, a bit of the demi baguette I bought myself as a treat, and pistachio nuts—and we watched The Homecoming: A Christmas Story and the 1980, 1981 (two shows), and 1982 Ask the Manager Christmas shows, from Joe receiving his spotted tie as a gift to Dan telling Dana about the "Christkindl" custom at his house for the first time. Oh, yeah, and the eggnog and Joe intoning "Rudy Cheeks, Rudy Cheeks, Rudy Rudy Cheeks." Always shed a tear now at the end of the 1980 show when the cast and crew do their "Merry Christmas" and the late Cliff Allen appears.

Oh, also got a nice late surprise in the mail: the copy of The Victorian Christmas Book that I had bought from Amazon Marketplace arrived. The Country Diary Christmas Book uses so many quotes from this book that I couldn't resist ordering it: it was 30 cents, an ex-library book, but quite intact and with an excellent cover.

By then it was time to load Christmas gifts in a Xerox box, get Schuyler back to her perch on the bookcase and clean up, and take Willow outside. To our surprise, we met James at the door—they let him out fifteen whole minutes early! Soon we were in the truck and heading to the Boulers for Christmas Eve dinner. We went the long way, through Dunleith, the neighborhood next to our old one, but they did not do luminarias for Christmas Eve this year; I don't know if they have quit or did them over the weekend.

We had a grand time at the Boulers, with the Spiveys, the Elders and the Boroses, plus Keith—noshed our way through turkey, ham, beef roast, some veggies, dessert, then did presents before the fire. Keith, as always, gives the most unique gifts: this year we received a bird feeder, a bag of birdseed, and a guide to wild birds of North America. The Boulers' dogs watched us enviously from the upstairs balcony: G'Kar, the Jack Russell, shoved himself between the banisters to stare at us.

We came home via a roundabout route to check out more lights. When we got home, I was still in gift mode, so we opened our gifts under the tree. I had bought James a new copy of Top Gun (he only had the videotape), two books about the space program and one about World War II fliers, a DVD set of WWII videos, and a 4GB jump drive. I received the book of The War, London Then and Now, a bag for my new camera, and some Japanese Cherry Blossom cologne from Bath and Body Works. We also received some cute gifts from Emma, who bought me a cute pig Webkinz. I think I will name her "Peggy" after Mike's guinea pig (I know, not the same species, but both cute!). Miss Schuyler got a nice big piece of millet from Santa, and Willow got beef and cheese treats (which she has been staring at since last night).

We then sat and relaxed and listened to Christmas music and then the Midnight Mass from the Vatican, which lasted over an hour tonight.

This morning, therefore, we slept in, despite the pinpoint power failure at 8 a.m. which turned James' C-PAP on and off again. Willow finally started to bark, at which we discovered Santa had sent Atlanta a Christmas gift: it was raining! It rained steadily for nearly two hours, then cleared, but it looks as if another bank of rain is headed this way. I'd rather have snow, but we need the rain.

While I went out searching for a newspaper, James made French toast out of the last of the challah loaf we bought last weekend. (Last year we had hit six places Christmas Day and never found a newspaper. One place even told me they didn't print a newspaper on Christmas. Nonsense! Large Metro area newspapers are like hospitals; they never take holidays.) I was successful in one try and we ate breakfast—luscious French toast made with Splenda and topped with the lovely Grade B super-maply syrup my cousin Donna bought us two years ago—and read the paper along to the end of the Walt Disney World parade and then Christmas at St. Olaf's.

Anyway, it's about time for me to go wash the salad...Merry Christmas to all, and Buon Natale, too!

[Later: I should say we had a great time at the Butlers, but that would be redundant—we always have a great Christmas dinner there, and the company is always delightful.]