The first portion of this post was written while I was on my way back to California after Christmas (12/29), but never got around to finishing it. Typical! Better late than never, I guess!
Sorry for the unplanned blogging hiatus, I was so busy on my trip to Tallahassee for Christmas that I barely touched my laptop! I know that’s a pretty flimsy excuse for not updating my webpage, but I wanted to give a reason for my seemingly lazy behavior anyway. At the moment I’m sitting in the Dallas airport for my flight to LAX in about an hour. It was a whirlwind trip even though it was six days long. There’s always so much to do surrounding Christmas with shopping, cooking, and family traditions. But I had a wonderful time and a lovely Christmas with my parents despite the strong thunderstorms that accompanied my arrival (although my flight landed pretty easily in such horrible weather) and power outage when we got home from the airport. It’s a good thing my dad always has lots of flashlights! We went to sleep without power on the night of the 23rd. Luckily it was back on by the time we got up on Christmas Eve.
The remaining portion of this post was written today.
The rain wasn’t over yet, though. My parents and I waited out another line of thunderstorms that morning before heading to the mall to do some last minute Christmas shopping. That’s when I got my beloved red Toms which I’ve worn just about every day since then. Later than evening the weather had cleared up so we were able to go for our annual Christmas light viewing walk in the neighborhood. The rain had put a damper on some of the festivities, but it was still nice to admire the light displays. When we got home I hunkered down in front of the TV to watch “A Christmas Story” and wrap presents. You can’t wait any later than Christmas Eve for that! The next morning we made a delicious Christmas breakfast of buttermilk pancakes (thanks to this recipe from Martha Stewart), scrambled eggs, bacon, and fruit. Yum! We exchanged presents after breakfast and then all three of us got some exercise. It was a little chilly, but I ran 5 miles around the neighborhood, my dad ran a different route, and my mom took a walk. We all ended up getting home at about the same time. Our next job was putting together Christmas dinner. We had smoked turkey, cranberry sauce (using my own recipe), sweet potato casserole, and skillet green beans (a recipe I need to post soon). It was the most traditional meal we’d made in years (I usually make lasagna for Christmas dinner) and it was scrumptious. After dinner we went to see “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.” As far as I’m concerned, the jury is still out on this one. I definitely didn’t love it, but I think I’ll have to go see it again before making up my mind. As soon as we got home from the movie we had dessert – my mom’s famous chocolate cake and pecan pie. It was the perfect way to end Christmas Day.