28 November 2004

I know, I said I was going to update Sundays and Wednesdays, and then the very first Wednesday of that I didn't. I was a bit busy preparing for the family to show up. And they did, quite safely, no snow on the roads when they came or when they left this morning. And it did snow yesterday, so that made me happy: it was entirely too late to be having the first snow of the year, but better late than never and so on.

Our cookies are going to be awesome this year. Our pepparkakor are already awesome. I have the best cookie cutters. I have a heart and a star and a candy cane and a Christmas tree, for traditionalists, and a angel for extra Christmassy goodness, but I also have the state of Minnesota, a rocket ship, a shooting star, a large moose, a moose head, a tiny moose, a dragonfly, and a great big sun. Our spritz are also exceptional (all twenty-seven and a half dozen of them), and our krumkake look pretty darn good, too. We also made pretzel rings with chocolate this weekend, and they're good but less visually impressive. I still have plenty of baking to do, breads and cookies, plus candy-making. But it's a very good start to the Christmas baking season.

We did plenty of other things around here that were not centered around the kitchen. We watched "Miracle," which was a good movie for Mrissas to watch. We also watched "Shrek 2" and bits of a Muppet movie, and we went to "Christmas of Swing," which the older set really liked a lot, so I felt that was a good choice for them. And we went downtown to the Eighth Floor Auditorium. This year's story is Snow White, and it was all right. They've had some pretty spectacular years in the past, so it's hard to really impress us. We've gotten jaded about the Eighth Floor, I guess. But it wasn't one of the worst years, either, so that's good. And there was gingerbread and tea or coffee afterwards, and shopping, and dinner at Kieran's.

Also I got to meet Stella's mom and swap howdies with her, Stella, Mike, and Roo. Roo is getting more articulate every time I see him. "We go look at food?" Okay, hon, we can go look at the cookies behind the glass counter. "I want dat baby punkin." No, we can't get you that baby pumpkin; they're not selling them. Etc. "I ride on your shoders?" Um, no, no, Auntie Mrissa shoulders are not for riding on.

Andrew and Heather stopped through this morning after my family had gone, so we got to feed them our leftovers see them before they went back to Wisconsin. That was good, too. And not just because of the leftovers. (Our leftover situation is almost under control. Almost. And I have declared that I am not cooking tonight, and we're not eating leftovers, so it looks like that works out to having sushi with Pamela and David. Which sound like a very fine thing to me even aside from its no cooking/no leftovers advantages.)

So, long, busy weekend. And Sunday is my day off, so I'm not going to get back to writing today. Tomorrow for sure. Today I'm going to do a bit of laundry and eat sushi and read some of Mer's novel. Maybe do some more Christmas cards. I think it's time to revamp the to do list again, move things into different weeks. Holiday season. Hard to say what'll come up that seems like the thing to do.