12-Day Christmas Countdown

Day Twelve.

Twelve hours ‘til dinner.

Happy Christmas, everyone!

(I wanted to post a picture of the tree, but in the interest of time, I think I’ll wait a day or two.)

Twelve hours ‘til dinner.
Eleven hours of last minute preparations.
Ten frames bowled, and Lala shows up.
Nine friends and family to give gifts to.
Eight pounds of turkey.
Seven ornament swappers.
Six batches of cookies.
Five bags of pretzels.
Four guests for Christmas dinner.
Three animal print scarves.
Two cards to the Land of D.
One present wrapped.

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12-Day Christmas Countdown

Day Eleven.

Eleven hours of last minute preparations.

The house is tidy, the cookies are baked, the gifts are wrapped, and the pie is in the oven.

I’m one of those people who performs best when a deadline is imminent.

There’s a couple more things to take care of, so back to work I go.

Eleven hours of last minute preparations.
Ten frames bowled, and Lala shows up.
Nine friends and family to give gifts to.
Eight pounds of turkey.
Seven ornament swappers.
Six batches of cookies.
Five bags of pretzels.
Four guests for Christmas dinner.
Three animal print scarves.
Two cards to the Land of D.
One present wrapped.

Comments:

12-Day Christmas Countdown

Day Ten (or slightly thereafter).

Ten frames bowled, and Lala shows up.

(Bronx cheer)

I had a feeling Lala would be making a guest appearance tonight, though I hoped he wouldn’t.  I could really, REALLY do without seeing him.

He came just in time to see me finish a nice 125 game.  I decided to be cordial, say hello, and wish him a Merry Christmas.  He was cordial but definitely cool.  I must admit, I was a tad surprised given that just last week Mack told me that whole thing about, “You know, Sean knows he made a mistake.” … blah-blah-blah, about Skank Thing.  Yeah, whatever.  It caught me off guard, and my response to Mack was a very dry, “I’m so happy for him.”  Perhaps that got back to him.  Again, whatever.

I stewed in a 15-minute funk and then shifted my thoughts to Christmas with my family and upcoming visits with Jenny and Olivia, and then I felt warm and smiley once again.

So there.

Ten frames bowled, and Lala shows up.
Nine friends and family to give gifts to.
Eight pounds of turkey.
Seven ornament swappers.
Six batches of cookies.
Five bags of pretzels.
Four guests for Christmas dinner.
Three animal print scarves.
Two cards to the Land of D.
One present wrapped.

Comments:

12-Day Christmas Countdown

Day Nine.

Nine friends and family to give gifts to.

I get off easy, thanks to my little family.

Mom, Tim, Jackie, Emma, Jenny, Olivia, Lauren, Jeannie, Leah.  Anyone else I should happen to see over the holidays gets one of my cookie trays.

Nine friends and family to give gifts to.
Eight pounds of turkey.
Seven ornament swappers.
Six batches of cookies.
Five bags of pretzels.
Four guests for Christmas dinner.
Three animal print scarves.
Two cards to the Land of D.
One present wrapped.

12-Day Christmas Countdown

Day Eight.

Eight pounds of turkey.

Well, technically it’s 7.64 pounds.  A turkey breast.

Dinner is as at 1:00.

Man, I really could use a second refrigerator this week.  The bird, the cookies, the pie I’ve yet to make, extra ice, extra beverages.  Oy.  If the temperature stays steadily cool, I may end up storing some stuff in the punchbuggy trunk.

Eight pounds of turkey.
Seven ornament swappers.
Six batches of cookies.
Five bags of pretzels.
Four guests for Christmas dinner.
Three animal print scarves.
Two cards to the Land of D.
One present wrapped.

Note to *Katie:  For my peanut butter cookies, I use the Hershey Kisses recipe, but instead of Kisses I place four or five Christmas M&Ms on each cookie (pre-baking).  I do this for storage reasons.  It’s much easier to stack and store cookies topped with M&Ms than with Hershey Kisses.

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12-Day Christmas Countdown

Day Seven.

Oooh.  I just missed the midnight deadline.

Seven ornament swappers.

We do an ornament exchange at work.  Unlike our Yankee Swap, this swap is direct gift-giving.  No secrets, no taking of another’s ornament.  We pulled names a couple of weeks ago.  I drew Nancy.  Jane drew me.

Also partaking are Sandy, Tina, Linda, and Terri.

Nancy’s an easy one this year.  She moved to a new home about six months ago, so I got a Hallmark “first Christmas in our new home” ornament.

The exchange takes place on Thursday at lunch.  We’ll order pizza or sandwiches and wish we had margaritas.

Seven ornament swappers.
Six batches of cookies.
Five bags of pretzels.
Four guests for Christmas dinner.
Three animal print scarves.
Two cards to the Land of D.
One present wrapped.

Comments:

12-Day Christmas Countdown

Day Six.

Six batches of cookies.

See?  I AM scaling back this year.  In recent years, I made eight or nine kinds of cookies.

This year’s lineup:

Butter (cutouts)
Butterballs (a/k/a Russian teacakes)
Peanut butter
Snowballs
Lemon
Macaroons

As always, there will be chocolate dipped pretzels and peanut butter fudge.

And another goodie or two for our Christmas feast.

But that’s all.

Unless I have time for peanut brittle…

Six batches of cookies.
Five bags of pretzels.
Four guests for Christmas dinner.
Three animal print scarves.
Two cards to the Land of D.
One present wrapped.

Comments:

12-Day Christmas Countdown

Day Five.

Five bags of pretzels.

…to dip in Belgian milk chocolate and sprinkle with “salt” jimmies.  The easiest goodie on my cookie trays, and people LOVE them.

At the supermarket, I tried to gauge how good the bags looked for a high unbroken pretzel count.  They didn’t look very good, so I bought all five bags they had.  Today, I sorted through them, and the final count of whole, unbroken pretzels was 43.  Dismal.  I should have been able to get that many from just three bags.  If they were just for my cookie trays, 43 would be fine.  However, I’m making a tray of just pretzels for Friday’s bowling league party.  (Several women already had signed up to bring in cookies.)  I need to make one more trip to the supermarket this week, and I’m hoping they’ve restocked on pretzels – better pretzels, like, more than 8.6 unbroken ones per bag.

And what happens to all those bits and pieces and almost-whole-but-not-quite pretzels?  They’re outta here and off to the office, where potato chip sales in the vending machine go down for the week.

Five bags of pretzels.
Four guests for Christmas dinner.
Three animal print scarves.
Two cards to the Land of D.
One present wrapped.

12-Day Christmas Countdown

Day Four.

Four guests for Christmas dinner.

That was an easy one.

I’m preparing a turkey dinner for Mom, brother Tim, sister-in-law Jackie, and niece Emma.  Mom is making the stuffing (because hers rocks and I’ve never attempted it) and a mincemeat-apple pie (because she’s craving it).  Tim is bringing the butternut squash (because he’s the only one who likes it) and sweet pickles.  He already has been informed that he can take the leftover pickles home with him.  I hate sweet pickles.  (Ditto for relish, of course.)  Also, Mom and Tim can divvy up that mincemeat-apple pie.  I don’t like that, either.

See a pattern here?  Yup – if I don’t like it, I don’t make/buy it.  I may even go so far as to cook a turkey breast rather than a whole bird, ‘cause I don’t like dark meat, not even for soup.  Aside from a little turkey and stuffing to make a sandwich, I don’t care to have ANY leftovers.  Oh, some squash pie, too.  But that’s all.

(By the way, about those three scarves I’ve yet to make, they’re for a post-Christmas gift swap.  Really, I haven’t bitten off more than I can chew.)

Four guests for Christmas dinner.
Three animal print scarves.
Two cards to the Land of D.
One present wrapped.

12-Day Christmas Countdown

Day Three.

I could have gone with three more cards to the Land of D, but, while that would be truthful, I do not want to come off as harping on the subject.  So…

Three animal print scarves.

To sew.  For Lauren, Jeannie, and Leah.  Alas, I do not know how to knit or crochet, but I do have the requisite skills to sew a rectangle.  Perhaps it’s just as well.  I’m seeing way too many of those hairy knitted scarves everywhere.

The scarves I’ll be sewing are heavyweight velour.  Lauren will be getting the gray-toned leopard, Jeannie the traditional, golden tan leopard, and for Leah who would blush at the mere thought of wearing anything so racy as a wildcat print, a black and white pony print.  I stitch in a border of black corded fringe at both ends.  (That’s about as tricky as it gets – making sure none of the fringes get sewn into the seam.)

I made one for myself a few years ago (traditional leopard) and received beaucoups de compliments.  A coworker told me how much similar scarves were selling for in high-end department stores.  Yowza!  I made mine for under $6.  Last Christmas, I made one for Olivia (gray leopard), as I knew she soon would be returning from Hawaii/California to chilly New England.  She said she has received many compliments on her scarf as well.

Hmmmm.  A $40 scarf made for $6?  Have I found my cottage industry?

For now, let’s just concentrate on the three.

Three animal print scarves.
Two cards to the Land of D.
One present wrapped.