Personally, it’s been surprisingly busy this holiday season. Invites out and people in for epic eating and good times. My jeans are definitely snugger, having to open the snap when I sit while my bra cuts into my ribs as if it’s strangling me, definitely the result of too much abundance that needs to be quelled in this new year.
Power outages set the holidays with an unusual tone, harkening us back to our grandparent’s time when candles and oil lamps lit the evenings when one had to invent creative ways to be entertained. In Mahone Bay, our house was lucky with the power coming back on before midnight on the 25th, others in the province weren’t so blessed, surviving days in the cold. In this day and age, removing the creature comfort of heat must have been horrific as we are so used to and spoiled by convenience. We are on a well system, not town utilities, so we didn’t have the luxury of running water to drink or flush toilets, but that was balanced out by having a wood stove to stay warm but talk of buying a generator was a main topic of conversation.
Christmas feasts were delayed or ruined depending on the rate of doneness when the power flickered and then went out around 5:00 pm, but in our house we managed nicely on cheese and crackers by candlelight, hoping the power would be back on for Boxing Day when we planned our big dinner. I saw trouper's posts on FB making the best of their Christmas meals, those that had it mostly prepared before the darkness. One said they made their gravy on the wood stove and then had a wonderful meal with family all around, their table lit with candles and smiles as they celebrated togetherness in the surrounding darkness.
Socializing took its toll on me this year. Too much happening with a calendar filled with invites, especially with our birthday celebrations, hubby’s is the day after mine, so it was a very busy week leading up to Christmas. Something also happened Friday evening that knocked me for a loop and completely stole that night’s sleep. I wrote about it in the wee hours of the morning, needing to get it out before I burst, my fingers were like lightening bolts as the incident’s emotion spewed onto the screen. I’ll post it later when the anger and sadness mellows, but for now I’ll keep it light, I just wanted to help explain the sleep deficit that had been accumulating.
The biggest culprit of sleeplessness was taking on a project earlier in the week to hook a pillow for friends that have Felina, a 30 ft Nonsuch. It was a great idea but it should have been executed weeks before, not run up to Christmas Eve like a train out of control. Seeing 3:00 am a few nights in a row I struggled to finish it in a timely fashion which pushed back any Christmas prep I needed to do. No presents were wrapped or cookies baked as my addiction pushed me on, displacing things needing done and allowing a cavern to open up for stress to fill. I love to hook and perhaps I like to put myself under the gun to add to the endorphin rush but this was well over the top, even for me.
We were invited out for dinner Christmas Day so I planned to go to the shop and sew it up before we arrived at their house at 6:00. The lights out as soon as I reach the shop so that put an end to sewing and then we skipped dinner to stay home with the pups who were unnerved by the howling wind. Word was that the power might not come on until the following morning so before midnight, we all packed into the car and went to the shop to fill up water containers so we could at least flush the toilets and the power came back on shortly after we arrived so I sewed up the pillow then. The recipients of it were coming to dinner on Boxing Day and would be presented with it then.
I guess it was unrealistic to begin a project so close to Christmas but once the idea hit, there didn’t seem to be anywhere to go but diving in head first. It was the perfect gift that no amount of trudging around the stores in search of a present could beat. Homemade is always best, there’s love behind the making, giving the giving a deeper meaning and the joy I felt as they opened the present was all the payment I needed. Our boats mean a lot to us and decorating it with our handiwork can’t be measured.
But, the lack of sleep and exhaustion put a bit of a damper on the preparation of our Boxing Day meal. I struggled to prepare and cook, ignoring the sofa’s inviting attributes to rest my weary bones. My legs ached and I had to take two sets of extra strength Ibuprofen to get through the day. By 11:30 pm, after the food was put away and the last dish washed, I could barely form a sentence, the words weighed as heavy on my tongue as the cold gravy we scraped from the pan. I literally had to stoop over the edge of the sink, my stomach and ribs supporting my frame, handling the delicate crystal and dishes with pronounced grip as not to drop and break them with my weary hands. Hubby deboned the turkey and I looked over once and saw him resting on his elbows while he worked, hunched over the island counter as his back pinged warnings. We looked at each other, our eyes portraying all the agony going on within our spent bodies.
Afterwards, we sat in the living room looking at each other, the smell of turkey a constant reminder of the heft of our day, too dumb struck to even speak, our jaws unhinged by shear exhaustion. Christmas music attempted to soothe us, fanciful songs and Hallmark card moments peddling the romance of Christmas, none portraying the hard work and the labour that actually constructs it. Sleigh rides and jingle bells are fun but far from holiday truths of the work to make our homes glow with tinsel and bows and the smell of baked goods about to come out of the oven. Maybe I’m just getting old, but as the matriarch of the family, the chief cook and bottle washer, it’s a lot of work to make everything look and taste this good. Being on my feet all day preparing for the dinner and tidying the house for company and then cleaning up after their full bellies had left us with a mess that spanned the kitchen from one end to the other. Hubby was drained too, he’s an amazing help in all areas but is seven years my senior. We’re ready to hang up our aprons and pass the baton anytime!
I love cooking and the Christmas dinner is definitely a meal to be made with love, to share with family and friends most dear. Once sitting at the table we enjoyed watching them devour the festive meal we’d prepared and we felt blessed. But peeps, it did us in this year so we decided next year that lasagna, a lovely salad and garlic bread will be on the menu, if that’s appealing come on by!
If the truth is told, I’m not a great fan of turkey, I could live without it for the rest of my days and sparing one the axe might bring more joy than the smell of its plucked carcass cooking, wafting through the house, bringing back memories of my childhood and my mother’s delicious Christmas feast. I think I could make new memories and install new traditions with an Italian menu, I’m told I make amazing lasagna so Christmas could smell like tomato meat sauce and cheese, it’s a festive colour too!
Perhaps I go a bit overboard with the side dishes that are time consuming to prepare. I like fancy dishes, more than the simple mashed potatoes, peas and carrots. I make three kinds of potatoes; sweet, mashed and dressing which is filled with goodies and seasoning. Then I prepare Honeyed Carrots & Parsnips and that fabulous Brussel Sprout recipe I mentioned a while back that I would crawl naked over glass for and was the hit of the meal; gourmet cranberry sauce with orange rind and currants and the “Littles” family tradition Tangy Mustard Cauliflower. And to end the meal, Carrot Cake and shortbread cookies, made that morning.
All these dishes mean it’s a bit of a juggling act with one oven, to keep alternating between casseroles and the turkey and then struggling to keep it all warm. A smaller turkey might suffice; the 15 pounder was too large to rearrange the oven racks to accommodate anything else. I’m told that a lot of stoves now have a second oven in the lower section that is usually reserved for storage. I can hardly wait for this stove to break down. It’s been a hog, slow to heat and everything takes longer to bake. You have to add at least 20 minutes to every recipe or at least ten degrees to the cooking temperature to get anything baked.
For now lasagna seems a simple and reasonable substitution for a Christmas meal but maybe I’ll change my mind and go the turkey route again. Maybe if I get more sleep next year it won’t be a problem and besides, it’s like giving birth, no thoughts of another baby anytime soon, but over time we forget the all the pain and do it again.
The shop was closed between Christmas and New Year’s but I didn’t quite make it through the week with numerous requests to get in the shop so I decided to open Friday and Saturday from 12:00 pm to 4:00 pm. I met some very nice people, new rug hookers that are embarking on the wonderful journey of this creative road we all travel. Friends came by to hang out in the Hook Nook so that was fabulous and then I stayed late Saturday to get some yearend items done. No rest for a shop owner in a new year. This week is inventory counting, the bowel movement of a business, the enema to purge all 2017 paper work to make room for the new. No fun there, but thankfully I have a book keeper to take over the reins after the counting is done so I can jump on the band wagon and ride it through 2018 spreading rug hooking joy!
New Year’s Eve, hubby and I and friends bedded down 2017 with a few bangs of expired boat flares and hand held rockets then stayed up till 3:30 am playing Five Crowns and Euchre and blasting 70’s tunes that transported us old fogies to our youth as only great music can. 2018 entered fresh and electrifying with its youthful presence, promising amazing things to come. I can feel it in my bones peeps, 2018 is going to be a fantastic year!
Today is January 2nd and I’m finally rested after a complete eight hours sleep last night. This is the first day I’ve felt fully awake and energetic since before Christmas. Although the shop was open with Deborah at the helm, I took today off to get a few things done at home but I’m happy to go to work tomorrow to get the ball rolling to close 2017 and welcome 2018 with enthusiasm and open arms.
HOOK ON EVERYONE!
Power outages set the holidays with an unusual tone, harkening us back to our grandparent’s time when candles and oil lamps lit the evenings when one had to invent creative ways to be entertained. In Mahone Bay, our house was lucky with the power coming back on before midnight on the 25th, others in the province weren’t so blessed, surviving days in the cold. In this day and age, removing the creature comfort of heat must have been horrific as we are so used to and spoiled by convenience. We are on a well system, not town utilities, so we didn’t have the luxury of running water to drink or flush toilets, but that was balanced out by having a wood stove to stay warm but talk of buying a generator was a main topic of conversation.
Christmas feasts were delayed or ruined depending on the rate of doneness when the power flickered and then went out around 5:00 pm, but in our house we managed nicely on cheese and crackers by candlelight, hoping the power would be back on for Boxing Day when we planned our big dinner. I saw trouper's posts on FB making the best of their Christmas meals, those that had it mostly prepared before the darkness. One said they made their gravy on the wood stove and then had a wonderful meal with family all around, their table lit with candles and smiles as they celebrated togetherness in the surrounding darkness.
Socializing took its toll on me this year. Too much happening with a calendar filled with invites, especially with our birthday celebrations, hubby’s is the day after mine, so it was a very busy week leading up to Christmas. Something also happened Friday evening that knocked me for a loop and completely stole that night’s sleep. I wrote about it in the wee hours of the morning, needing to get it out before I burst, my fingers were like lightening bolts as the incident’s emotion spewed onto the screen. I’ll post it later when the anger and sadness mellows, but for now I’ll keep it light, I just wanted to help explain the sleep deficit that had been accumulating.
The biggest culprit of sleeplessness was taking on a project earlier in the week to hook a pillow for friends that have Felina, a 30 ft Nonsuch. It was a great idea but it should have been executed weeks before, not run up to Christmas Eve like a train out of control. Seeing 3:00 am a few nights in a row I struggled to finish it in a timely fashion which pushed back any Christmas prep I needed to do. No presents were wrapped or cookies baked as my addiction pushed me on, displacing things needing done and allowing a cavern to open up for stress to fill. I love to hook and perhaps I like to put myself under the gun to add to the endorphin rush but this was well over the top, even for me.
We were invited out for dinner Christmas Day so I planned to go to the shop and sew it up before we arrived at their house at 6:00. The lights out as soon as I reach the shop so that put an end to sewing and then we skipped dinner to stay home with the pups who were unnerved by the howling wind. Word was that the power might not come on until the following morning so before midnight, we all packed into the car and went to the shop to fill up water containers so we could at least flush the toilets and the power came back on shortly after we arrived so I sewed up the pillow then. The recipients of it were coming to dinner on Boxing Day and would be presented with it then.
I guess it was unrealistic to begin a project so close to Christmas but once the idea hit, there didn’t seem to be anywhere to go but diving in head first. It was the perfect gift that no amount of trudging around the stores in search of a present could beat. Homemade is always best, there’s love behind the making, giving the giving a deeper meaning and the joy I felt as they opened the present was all the payment I needed. Our boats mean a lot to us and decorating it with our handiwork can’t be measured.
But, the lack of sleep and exhaustion put a bit of a damper on the preparation of our Boxing Day meal. I struggled to prepare and cook, ignoring the sofa’s inviting attributes to rest my weary bones. My legs ached and I had to take two sets of extra strength Ibuprofen to get through the day. By 11:30 pm, after the food was put away and the last dish washed, I could barely form a sentence, the words weighed as heavy on my tongue as the cold gravy we scraped from the pan. I literally had to stoop over the edge of the sink, my stomach and ribs supporting my frame, handling the delicate crystal and dishes with pronounced grip as not to drop and break them with my weary hands. Hubby deboned the turkey and I looked over once and saw him resting on his elbows while he worked, hunched over the island counter as his back pinged warnings. We looked at each other, our eyes portraying all the agony going on within our spent bodies.
Afterwards, we sat in the living room looking at each other, the smell of turkey a constant reminder of the heft of our day, too dumb struck to even speak, our jaws unhinged by shear exhaustion. Christmas music attempted to soothe us, fanciful songs and Hallmark card moments peddling the romance of Christmas, none portraying the hard work and the labour that actually constructs it. Sleigh rides and jingle bells are fun but far from holiday truths of the work to make our homes glow with tinsel and bows and the smell of baked goods about to come out of the oven. Maybe I’m just getting old, but as the matriarch of the family, the chief cook and bottle washer, it’s a lot of work to make everything look and taste this good. Being on my feet all day preparing for the dinner and tidying the house for company and then cleaning up after their full bellies had left us with a mess that spanned the kitchen from one end to the other. Hubby was drained too, he’s an amazing help in all areas but is seven years my senior. We’re ready to hang up our aprons and pass the baton anytime!
I love cooking and the Christmas dinner is definitely a meal to be made with love, to share with family and friends most dear. Once sitting at the table we enjoyed watching them devour the festive meal we’d prepared and we felt blessed. But peeps, it did us in this year so we decided next year that lasagna, a lovely salad and garlic bread will be on the menu, if that’s appealing come on by!
If the truth is told, I’m not a great fan of turkey, I could live without it for the rest of my days and sparing one the axe might bring more joy than the smell of its plucked carcass cooking, wafting through the house, bringing back memories of my childhood and my mother’s delicious Christmas feast. I think I could make new memories and install new traditions with an Italian menu, I’m told I make amazing lasagna so Christmas could smell like tomato meat sauce and cheese, it’s a festive colour too!
Perhaps I go a bit overboard with the side dishes that are time consuming to prepare. I like fancy dishes, more than the simple mashed potatoes, peas and carrots. I make three kinds of potatoes; sweet, mashed and dressing which is filled with goodies and seasoning. Then I prepare Honeyed Carrots & Parsnips and that fabulous Brussel Sprout recipe I mentioned a while back that I would crawl naked over glass for and was the hit of the meal; gourmet cranberry sauce with orange rind and currants and the “Littles” family tradition Tangy Mustard Cauliflower. And to end the meal, Carrot Cake and shortbread cookies, made that morning.
All these dishes mean it’s a bit of a juggling act with one oven, to keep alternating between casseroles and the turkey and then struggling to keep it all warm. A smaller turkey might suffice; the 15 pounder was too large to rearrange the oven racks to accommodate anything else. I’m told that a lot of stoves now have a second oven in the lower section that is usually reserved for storage. I can hardly wait for this stove to break down. It’s been a hog, slow to heat and everything takes longer to bake. You have to add at least 20 minutes to every recipe or at least ten degrees to the cooking temperature to get anything baked.
For now lasagna seems a simple and reasonable substitution for a Christmas meal but maybe I’ll change my mind and go the turkey route again. Maybe if I get more sleep next year it won’t be a problem and besides, it’s like giving birth, no thoughts of another baby anytime soon, but over time we forget the all the pain and do it again.
The shop was closed between Christmas and New Year’s but I didn’t quite make it through the week with numerous requests to get in the shop so I decided to open Friday and Saturday from 12:00 pm to 4:00 pm. I met some very nice people, new rug hookers that are embarking on the wonderful journey of this creative road we all travel. Friends came by to hang out in the Hook Nook so that was fabulous and then I stayed late Saturday to get some yearend items done. No rest for a shop owner in a new year. This week is inventory counting, the bowel movement of a business, the enema to purge all 2017 paper work to make room for the new. No fun there, but thankfully I have a book keeper to take over the reins after the counting is done so I can jump on the band wagon and ride it through 2018 spreading rug hooking joy!
New Year’s Eve, hubby and I and friends bedded down 2017 with a few bangs of expired boat flares and hand held rockets then stayed up till 3:30 am playing Five Crowns and Euchre and blasting 70’s tunes that transported us old fogies to our youth as only great music can. 2018 entered fresh and electrifying with its youthful presence, promising amazing things to come. I can feel it in my bones peeps, 2018 is going to be a fantastic year!
Today is January 2nd and I’m finally rested after a complete eight hours sleep last night. This is the first day I’ve felt fully awake and energetic since before Christmas. Although the shop was open with Deborah at the helm, I took today off to get a few things done at home but I’m happy to go to work tomorrow to get the ball rolling to close 2017 and welcome 2018 with enthusiasm and open arms.
HOOK ON EVERYONE!
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