Christmas is Here at Last

If you read my post about Christmas music, you may already know that I am a huge fan of the holiday in general. I love the way everyone is thinking about others, I love the music, I love spending time with my family, and I really love the decorations. I have a long history of taking whatever crappy little apartment I live in and, with the help of my excellent friends, turning it into a Christmas wonderland. One year, we had a Christmas tree that was bright enough to read by. It was amazing.
Now that I have a spacious, pretty house instead of a crappy little apartment, I've really been looking forward to the Christmas decorating. I have been trolling Pinterest for ideas for weeks, and when we moved in, one of the first things I did was plan for where we'd put the Christmas tree.
Normally, I bust out the decorations on Friday after Thanksgiving, and that night my tree is burning brightly for all the world to see. This year, though, after hosting the big family dinner, most of Friday was spent cleaning. When that was done I really didn't relish the idea of hauling a bunch of boxes up from the basement to decorate. Then, on Saturday I wanted to enjoy my first chance to relax in about a week, and on Sunday I was running around to family dinners and orchestra practice.
All of this means I didn't get my tree up last weekend, and I felt like a Christmas fraud. I, who normally spreads the Christmas spirit around to others, couldn't even find the time to get my decorations up? Well, I put a stop to that Monday night. I came home from work, found all the boxes (we moved since last Christmas so I had to hunt through several different storage areas), and filled my house with Christmas joy.
Of course, I'm just getting started. I still plan on putting lights up outside, and I'm going to do a great deal more decorating inside. But the most important things are taken care of. The tree is up and beautiful, and the stockings are hung with care. But you don't have to take my word for it, here's the proof!

Post-Thanksgiving Breakdown

My mom has always hosted the big Thanksgiving family dinner at her house, and for several years now I've been trying to help her out more and more with all the work. I go to her house the day before and help her make a half-dozen or so pies, and I go out early on the day of to help her with all the cooking. I set the table and try to take over organizational aspects so she doesn't have to worry about them. I even help her clean up; well, at least, I help as much as I can make myself do, seeing as how I hate that part. Helping this way for years now led me to think that I wanted to host the holiday at my house this time.

Well, I did host the dinner, and I think everyone had a lot of fun. I invited the in-laws to come to make an addition to my large, raucous family. Everyone got along, nobody brought up politics or religion, and we all sat around eating pie and playing games all night.

On top of being a lot of fun, though, it was a LOT of work. I knew it would be, but I didn't appreciate how much until I actually did the work myself. The biggest hassle was, of course, the turkey. I've assisted in the preparation of turkeys before, but I've never actually done all the heavy lifting myself. Oh, and speaking of heavy lifting, for all you aspiring cooks out there - based on my experience, I would suggest that you not start with a 26-plus pound turkey on your first endeavor. Everything was about 15 pounds harder than it could have been if I had done a turkey half the size.

As much as I complain, everything came out all right. The turkey was juicy thanks to the preparatory brining I did the day before. It even took less time than I thought it would to cook, and we were able to have dinner at the time I we planned for. That is a small miracle of its own. All the side dishes were tasty, and there was enough that everyone went home with plenty of leftovers.

There was one catastrophe, however. This afternoon when I went to the fridge to ravage the leftovers for a post-Thanksgiving feast, the mashed potatoes and gravy I had carefully put in tupperware to keep here were nowhere to be found. I think that in the general chaos of left-over divvying up, someone saw my nicely packaged containers and walked off with them. I'm trying not to assign pernicious intent to this action, but it's really difficult not to do when I didn't have any mashed potatoes today.

Even with the tragedy of the lost leftovers, I think this whole hosting Thanksgiving thing was a success and I enjoyed it. I've always enjoyed throwing parties and having people over, and now I have a house big enough to do some real entertaining. My first experience was exhausting, but I'd definitely do it again. Which is a good thing, seeing as how the boyfriend and I have already volunteered to host another massive dinner party in December. I guess we're just gluttons for punishment.

This Is a Cheater Post

I am not doing excellently in my goal to write a blog post a day in November. First off, I didn't get started until November 5, and then last weekend I had a bit of a setback and didn't write anything for about 4 days straight. Because of this, I have revised the goal somewhat. My goal is to write 30 blog entries in 30 days. That means I have until December 4 to finish, and I will still have a whole month's worth of bloginess, even if it didn't work out to be exactly a blog a day.

I was looking at my posting history and realized my most recent entry was number 14 this month. 14 is, if I'm doing the math right, one less than 15. And 15 is, as we all know, half of 30. That means, if I can post one more blog entry this evening, I will be half-way through my goal.

Hence, the cheater post. I couldn't be that close to the half-way point without hitting it, so I decided to write about how I am at the half way point. I completely agree that this is a sneaky way to hit half of my goal, but I am okay with that. And it's my blog, so as long as I'm okay, it's okay.

So, without further ado, I will publish this blog and declare myself officially half-way done with my 30 days of 30 blog endeavor. Good night!

Legos - The Gift That Keeps On Giving

My boyfriend really likes Legos. We have lots and lots of those little plastic bricks in our house, and most major holidays that involve the exchanging of gifts end up being mostly an exchange of Lego sets. He's sucked me in as well, and now I trawl the Lego aisle at the store just as eagerly as he does, looking for new sets of my favorite types.

Well, the latest thing we've gotten into is Lego trains. Did you know that Lego has train sets you can buy that actually run? That means that not only do you get the fun of building the set, you get to play with it and totally freak out the cat. It's really the best thing ever. We have one that is already built, a bunch of extra track, and two more trains that will be unwrapped on Christmas morning.

Today, the boyfriend was looking at YouTube videos, and one of them gave him an idea. Someone ran track all through their house and created an elaborate three-way intersection. Then, they ran three different trains that were timed just right so that they all got to the intersection at the same time. Here, I'll just show you:

Doesn't that look fun? I know what we'll be doing on Christmas morning. Anyone who wants to join in is welcome to stop by.

In the Air There's a Feeling of Turkeys

After I graduated from high school, I did my first two years of college at Snow College in Ephraim, UT. I really had a good time there - I lived with friends, I enjoyed my professors and classes, I got to go on tour to Europe with the orchestra, and I felt like I got a great value for my money. I would recommend Snow to anyone who isn't going to mind being stuck in a small town with not much going on outside of the college.

However, there is one thing I do NOT miss. Ephraim is in Sanpete County, a place otherwise known as the turkey capital of the world. Okay, maybe not the capital of the world, but seriously, there are lots of turkeys there. There aren't just more turkeys than people in the county, there are many times more turkeys than people.

And turkeys stink. They make a foul odor (fowl odor?) that is carried everywhere in the valley. The closest turkey farm from the campus was several miles away on the edge of town, but everyday walking to class smelled like you were next door to one of those huge turkey sheds.

My favorite Ephraim moment had to do with the unique turkey odor. I was still in high school and taking a tour of the campus. Our tour guide was telling us all about how the campus was fun, and there are tons of things to do, basically trying to sell us on the school. Well, right in the middle of his spiel, two girls walked out of the student center building and had this conversation. Girl One, "Augh, it stinks!" Girl Two in a resigned of voice, "It's Ephraim, it ALWAYS stinks." Watching the perky tour guide try to recover from that was pure joy.

Wait, did I say that there are more turkeys than people in Sanpete County? I don't think that's actually accurate right now. You see, every year around the beginning of October, a magical thing happens. The turkey sheds, which previously were overflowing with big-breasted birds, are suddenly empty and abandoned. The air smells of normal fall things like wood burning stoves and not putrid bird droppings.

Yes, the turkey harvest had come at last. I always felt a little bit sad that so many turkeys going to meet their maker at this time of year made me so happy, but the feeling usually passed when I thought about the roast turkey and stuffing I'd be enjoying on Thanksgiving Day.

'Twas the Night Before Turkey Prep

Tomorrow morning is the official start of the Turkey Day chaos. I know it's a day earlier than the actual holiday, but I have lots to do.

I wrote a while ago about how I volunteered and lobbied to host the big family Thanksgiving dinner at my house. Then, when I got what I asked for I started wondering why I wanted to do this in the first place.

Well, since then I've gotten organized. The turkey is in the fridge, ready to be plunked in the brine first thing tomorrow morning. All the groceries are anxiously waiting their part in the big day. I've made assignments to various family members so I don't have to worry about it all. Everything is ready to start getting ready, and now I'm just waiting.

I feel like this is something of a calm before the storm. But I'm looking on the bright side. If craziness does happen, I'll have more things to write about on the blog!

Sometimes, Everyone Stumbles a Bit

I started November (technically, I started on the 5th) planning to write a blog every day for the month. I've been doing pretty well, posting each day and finding something to write about. That is, until last Thursday. Thursday I was busy doing something else, and that started a slide into horrible, horrible procrastination and I haven’t written a blog since.

For those of you counting, that’s five days I am behind, counting today. I don’t think I’ll write five entries today, unless the inspiration fairy REALLY hits me hard, but I will try to catch up as soon as possible. I am a firm believer in getting things done, even if they get done a little later than I originally intended.

Also, this counts as one of those missing days. As I've said before, this is my creative exercise, so I get to set the rules. Don't try to begrudge me my cheater entries!