Daily Notes- December 23

                                           

Making.  There always has to be something that I am making for Christmas.  This something doesn't always get finished in Time but still.....it's the making that is important.   I may not gift this to people until next year but...it really doesn't matter does it?  Most of the inhabitants of my street have family "elsewhere" and go there for the Holiday.  The street will be quiet.

I found backing in the sewing room closet along with the special batting.  I may have already told you. And I have the last minute grocery list ready to take to the store- after my coffee date at 11.  I almost forgot about the annual boozy chocolate cake.  This year it will also have ice cream.

I don't begin the serious cooking until tomorrow when I make Christmas Eve Food and the whole house smells like onions fried in butter.  I just wrote a few more things on the shopping list. The real intensive cooking is for Christmas Eve.  Christmas Day we have Christmas Burritos.  A tradition begun on a Christmas Day I realized I had not purchased or planned for a Holiday Meal.

The home from college children, husband and me....were hungry and nothing was cooking on the stove.  So I looked in the fridge and freezer and had the makings for Burritos.  I made up a fantastic story of the "Christmas Burritos" and well, they were delicious and we've had them every Christmas since then.  And we have the very lovely Boozy Chocolate Cake.  That's wasn't on the menu back then but it is now.

The Holidays of my childhood were very elaborate.  I don't know how my mother managed it all and still had time to starch and iron my daily dress and my brother's shirts and pants.  And the washing machine was the old wringer model and the clothes dryer was a line in the basement near the coal furnace.  I try an imagine myself doing all that plus meals that had no pre-made components.  But we each got a small pile of toys and one small bottle of real Coke (Santa drank Coke) on Christmas Eve.

So- off to have coffee on and a chat- its 48 degrees here in Maine-- and then the Bank and the Library and the Grocery.