Merry Christmas Eve

Merry Christmas Eve :)  It's cold and frosty here this morning, but still no snow.

Most of yesterday felt like it was spent in the kitchen. First making egg sandwiches for breakfast. Then dd and I started to make cookies and the cracker/toffee "cookies". Well, I messed up when we were doing the ingredients for the shortbread cookies! Too much talking and distractions I guess, but instead of grabbing the can of cornstarch I grabbed the can of baking powder and put 1/4 c. of that in instead! I realized it after I did it. The cans are the same shape and similar looking and I just wasn't paying attention. So, we dumped that out. Bummer because I had bought expensive Danish butter for it, too. I had another pound of it, though, but we had to wait and let it get soft to start over. So, then we made the crackers cookies and by the time we were done with that the butter was soft enough. It's really good butter. DD and I both liked it.

I had dd and SIL try that organic coffee I bought to see if if they thought it didn't taste good, either. Both of them didn't like it at all, either. I threw the (expensive) bag in the garbage. 

By early afternoon we were all feeling pretty sleepy. Dh fell asleep in the recliner, SIL on the couch. DD went up to the loft to read a book she brought and I went and took a nap. Then it was back to the kitchen to make the homemade mac and cheese and pizza for dinner. All of that turned out delicious, but that mac and cheese is a lot of work. Plus I bought good cheeses that 2 of them had to be shredded, but we put SIL to work doing that, so that helped. 

After dinner we watched the new Jeff Dunham Christmas comedy special. We all laughed and dh fell asleep, of course. Then we decided to watch Die Hard, because dd had never seen it. DH managed to stay awake (and actually put his glasses on) for that. I have a feeling we'll be watching the second one tonight ;)

Today I need to get the turkey in the oven. I usually try to get it in around 10, so we can eat around 2:30 or 3. Then  after dinner we will open our presents. There's a lot of presents under that big tree for just the 4 of us. I think we all got a bit carried away this year. Oh well, it will be fun and we always open slowly, with everyone taking a turn.

It has seemed different not having my mom here (or not having to go see her, as we did her final Christmas) but as dd and I were talking - it's also the first Christmas I've had in quite a few years that I wasn't stressed out trying to have her here and worrying about her and her safety, due to the dementia. I'm glad she can join us in spirit now and she's all whole again 💖