Christmas 2022
Dec. 26th, 2022 09:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
taz_39I woke up early on Thursday to pack and load up the car.
My stepmom and I headed to Agape, a local charity that my parents helped to found.
Before my dad died my stepmom ran the kitchen, directing a group of volunteers to prepare meals for other volunteers working in other parts of the building (housewares, food pantry, financial assistance, etc).
Since his death she's had to step away from having a leadership role, but she still volunteers in the kitchen.
As we drove I could see the wall of snow coming over the mountain, like literally moving toward us like a rolling wave.
It was already accumulating as we pulled up to Agape and unloaded food and cookware.
Inside I stuck around to help peel sweet potatoes, but decided to hit the road early after seeing that the snow was sticking more than had been forecast.
It's been years since I had to drive in snow, and I had a few scary moments before getting my "sea legs" back.
The scariest was when my GPS redirected me to a rural route due to an accident on the highway. I got stuck partway up an incline and had to do this awkward sliding-turn back down the hill, being careful not to slide into or hit anyone, and build up enough momentum to try again. The second time I made it.
After that I passed a jackknifed trailer; two different spin-out accidents with the cars lying in ditches; and was diverted from one interstate closure due to multi-vehicle accidents.
So I wasn't the WORST driver of the day, me and my Florida plates.
It was a miserable travel day. Snowed for the first three hours, then freezing rain and later just pouring rain as I entered North Carolina. Traffic was horrible around DC and Richmond, even more than usual thanks to the weather and the holiday, so even though I left two hours early I arrived two hours late. Bonkers.
I crashed at my aunt's house. She had a cold, so we didn't even see each other. I just went straight to bed in my clothes.
-------------------------------------------------------
At 4:50am my internal alarm went off. I have a REALLY good internal alarm.
At 5am I was on the road again.
Stopped for a coffee and kept going for as long as I could.
Breakfast was some beet-marinated eggs that I'd bought in PA. Aren't they a lovely purple? And they taste great too!
Traffic at first was great. I got to the South Carolina Buc-ee's before 8am, so decided to stop there for my goodies (this turned out to be the right choice; traffic accidents would later divert me away from the Jacksonville Buc-ee's). They were out of quail eggs but there was plenty of jerky.
This is what the jerky at Buc-ee's looks like.
It's not "flaked" or "chipped", but whole-muscle slabs that have been slow-smoked by a specific smokehouse in Texas.
This piece is the size of a railroad spike.
Anyway, I got four pieces of jerky, a Christmas tree ornament, a bar of pecan divinity for Jameson, and a shot glass.
For lunch I intentionally stopped in a shopping plaza in Georgia because my friend has a Christmas tradition of eating ALDI stollen with his family, and had been unable to find any this year. Luckily I was able to find one for him! Then got gas and lunch and continued on.
I got to Whole Paycheck almost right at five. My friend met me in the parking lot and thanked me profusely for the stollen.
Then I scrambled around inside the store trying to find all the things I'd need in coming days.
Beef tenderloin is CRIMINALLY expensive. You guys, it's THIRTY-ONE DOLLARS A POUND.
The recipe calls for 3.5 pounds and I was like, nooooooooo.
We are doing a half recipe and will count ourselves VERY fortunate to be able to afford that.
In fact I found everything that I needed except for horseradish. Damn!
I should have brought some from PA, they even sell it in the gas stations up there.
It took another hour to get home to Jameson, but finally I made it and he had a home-cooked meal ready for me :)
Brown sugar bourbon meatloaf with mashed potatoes and lemon broccoli, from HelloFresh.
What a sweetheart!
I ate and told him all about my travels and visit, then unpacked like a maniac and cleaned up in the kitchen before utterly CRASHING with a blanket and a cup of tea.
---------------------------------------------------
Christmas Eve Day!
It was weird to be in Florida, but with 30-something temperatures. And if it's that cold here...
Jonah texted to tell us his pipes had frozen :/ Hopefully his landlord can help him out.
I spent the morning cutting a sticky bun recipe down to only three buns, doing a load of laundry, sharpening the knives that Raven had given us, then reluctantly driving to Publix for the stupid horseradish. It was i-n-s-a-n-e in there. The self checkout line was all the way to the back of the store. Luckily they did have horseradish, I grabbed that and some paper towels and was able to get out fairly quickly despite the long line. People were cheerful and patient at least.
Back home we watched the Guardians of the Galaxy Christmas Special together, it was hilarious and cute.
If you're a Marvel fan I think you'd like it.
I prepped as much as I could for Christmas dinner...made the honey mustard viniagrette for the kale salad, the horseradish sauce for our beef tenderloin, and the rub mixture for the beef itself.
We tried the Buc-ee's jerky and as usual I loved the cherry flavor, but found the garlic one to be "meh". Not bad, just nothing special.
Later on we had pizza for dinner, then I got started on the sticky buns for Christmas Day breakfast.
I was (partially) using the Claire Saffitz recipe, but she doesn't write the steps out and the video is 25 minutes long.
She lists the ingredients in the video description, but doesn't separate all of the ingredients out.
So for example, the butter quantity is listed at 8 Tbsp, but unless you watch the video at the specific point where she uses the butter you won't know that she uses HALF the butter in the topping and HALF in the filling.
The result was that I accidentally put ALL of the butter into the topping.
It's a caramel, so it might be ok anyway...but we won't know until tomorrow. Sigh.
------------------------------------------------------
Christmas Day.
I was up early worrying about the sticky buns.
Got them into the microwave with a mug of boiling water to proof, made myself a cup of coffee, and listened to audio of my deceased parents. How's that for a cheerful start to the day, lol. But it was a good thing to do, to remember that Christmas was and is and always will be special.
After about an hour the buns looked ready to go.
They were finished right at 10am, and they looked and smelled GREAT despite the butter snafu.
Jameson was up a few minutes later, and we had hot sweet sticky buns while watching Mickey's Christmas Carol.
They were EXCELLENT. The sticky, nutty caramel sauce was at that perfect phase where it doesn't harden but becomes a sort of chewy glaze. The dough was fluffy and tender, with that floss-like texture that you see in Japanese milk bread.
I am saving this recipe, writing it out for future use.
It was the dough from a King Arthur Flour recipe combined with Claire's recipe for toppings and fillings, reduced by 1/4 to make only three buns. That's certainly enough alterations to justify calling this my own sticky bun recipe :)
The only thing I would change is that the topping was a little too salty. Easy fix.
Jameson was excited to open presents, so we did!
Just goofing off.
We started with stockings. Jameson got me many great candies, including the now-traditional Bertie Bott's Everyflavor Beans. I'm not expected to actually eat them, but we each roll the dice and eat just one. This year we BOTH got a good bean! I got a nice cappuccino bean instead of liver and onions, and jameson got strawberry banana smoothie instead of dead fish. Perhaps this year will be a good year!
Jameson's main presents were a Simpson's "Mr. Sparkle" figurine, limited edition and discontinued; a Joe Elliott pop vinyl; a set of Queen-themed socks from London Sock Exchange; a gift card for Sandgrain Studio; and Kyoho and Muscadine grape jellies from a specific prefecture in Japan, which I am especially proud of obtaining as they were extremely difficult to find.
Of course, the caveat is that I get to try one of each grape jelly ;D
As for me, I was deeply spoiled as usual!
This beautiful, handmade, engraved, ambidextrous bread knife from Etsy!!
I can't WAIT to use it!
Then, the latest Zoom Q2n-4K video recorder, which was specifically designed for musicians!
Jameson has one of these and I'm always wanting to borrow it. Now I have one of my own, plus a battery charger and stand!
He also got me a DoorDash gift card to use on the road, and an Etsy gift card (I LIVE for Etsy).
And a bottle of teaberry extract!! With it I can make teaberry ice cream, or teaberry-themed drinks or baked goods! So excited!
Oh, oh! And these Bon Bon candies! These are nostalgic for me, we used to sell them as a fundraiser for French class in high school. The strawberry ones are extremely good. Many of the other flavors are new to me and I'm looking forward to trying them.
We continued watching Christmas movies and specials and snacking on stocking treats.
Around noon I had a video chat with my sisters, then Jameson's parents called so we chatted with them too.
It was a pretty relaxing Christmas afternoon.
A few hours before dinner I got the tenderloin out and rubbed it down with coarse mustard, then a mixture of herbs and salt and peppercorn.
When dinnertime rolled around, Jameson made the mashed potatoes while I assembled the kale apple cranberry salad. When the roast was done and resting we threw some crescent rolls into the oven.
And when everything was ready, tossed the salad in a mustard viniagrette, brought out the horseradish sauce, and sliced the roast.
A festive meal indeed!
We watched Emmet Otter and ate too much.
We also tried the Japanese grape jellies, but I will save that for the next post as this one is getting pretty long.
Gosh, what a nice Christmas. Very glad I spent it with Jameson!
I hope that you all had a wonderful day as well :)
My stepmom and I headed to Agape, a local charity that my parents helped to found.
Before my dad died my stepmom ran the kitchen, directing a group of volunteers to prepare meals for other volunteers working in other parts of the building (housewares, food pantry, financial assistance, etc).
Since his death she's had to step away from having a leadership role, but she still volunteers in the kitchen.
As we drove I could see the wall of snow coming over the mountain, like literally moving toward us like a rolling wave.
It was already accumulating as we pulled up to Agape and unloaded food and cookware.
Inside I stuck around to help peel sweet potatoes, but decided to hit the road early after seeing that the snow was sticking more than had been forecast.
It's been years since I had to drive in snow, and I had a few scary moments before getting my "sea legs" back.
The scariest was when my GPS redirected me to a rural route due to an accident on the highway. I got stuck partway up an incline and had to do this awkward sliding-turn back down the hill, being careful not to slide into or hit anyone, and build up enough momentum to try again. The second time I made it.
After that I passed a jackknifed trailer; two different spin-out accidents with the cars lying in ditches; and was diverted from one interstate closure due to multi-vehicle accidents.
So I wasn't the WORST driver of the day, me and my Florida plates.
It was a miserable travel day. Snowed for the first three hours, then freezing rain and later just pouring rain as I entered North Carolina. Traffic was horrible around DC and Richmond, even more than usual thanks to the weather and the holiday, so even though I left two hours early I arrived two hours late. Bonkers.
I crashed at my aunt's house. She had a cold, so we didn't even see each other. I just went straight to bed in my clothes.
-------------------------------------------------------
At 4:50am my internal alarm went off. I have a REALLY good internal alarm.
At 5am I was on the road again.
Stopped for a coffee and kept going for as long as I could.
Breakfast was some beet-marinated eggs that I'd bought in PA. Aren't they a lovely purple? And they taste great too!
Traffic at first was great. I got to the South Carolina Buc-ee's before 8am, so decided to stop there for my goodies (this turned out to be the right choice; traffic accidents would later divert me away from the Jacksonville Buc-ee's). They were out of quail eggs but there was plenty of jerky.
This is what the jerky at Buc-ee's looks like.
It's not "flaked" or "chipped", but whole-muscle slabs that have been slow-smoked by a specific smokehouse in Texas.
This piece is the size of a railroad spike.
Anyway, I got four pieces of jerky, a Christmas tree ornament, a bar of pecan divinity for Jameson, and a shot glass.
For lunch I intentionally stopped in a shopping plaza in Georgia because my friend has a Christmas tradition of eating ALDI stollen with his family, and had been unable to find any this year. Luckily I was able to find one for him! Then got gas and lunch and continued on.
I got to Whole Paycheck almost right at five. My friend met me in the parking lot and thanked me profusely for the stollen.
Then I scrambled around inside the store trying to find all the things I'd need in coming days.
Beef tenderloin is CRIMINALLY expensive. You guys, it's THIRTY-ONE DOLLARS A POUND.
The recipe calls for 3.5 pounds and I was like, nooooooooo.
We are doing a half recipe and will count ourselves VERY fortunate to be able to afford that.
In fact I found everything that I needed except for horseradish. Damn!
I should have brought some from PA, they even sell it in the gas stations up there.
It took another hour to get home to Jameson, but finally I made it and he had a home-cooked meal ready for me :)
Brown sugar bourbon meatloaf with mashed potatoes and lemon broccoli, from HelloFresh.
What a sweetheart!
I ate and told him all about my travels and visit, then unpacked like a maniac and cleaned up in the kitchen before utterly CRASHING with a blanket and a cup of tea.
---------------------------------------------------
Christmas Eve Day!
It was weird to be in Florida, but with 30-something temperatures. And if it's that cold here...
Jonah texted to tell us his pipes had frozen :/ Hopefully his landlord can help him out.
I spent the morning cutting a sticky bun recipe down to only three buns, doing a load of laundry, sharpening the knives that Raven had given us, then reluctantly driving to Publix for the stupid horseradish. It was i-n-s-a-n-e in there. The self checkout line was all the way to the back of the store. Luckily they did have horseradish, I grabbed that and some paper towels and was able to get out fairly quickly despite the long line. People were cheerful and patient at least.
Back home we watched the Guardians of the Galaxy Christmas Special together, it was hilarious and cute.
If you're a Marvel fan I think you'd like it.
I prepped as much as I could for Christmas dinner...made the honey mustard viniagrette for the kale salad, the horseradish sauce for our beef tenderloin, and the rub mixture for the beef itself.
We tried the Buc-ee's jerky and as usual I loved the cherry flavor, but found the garlic one to be "meh". Not bad, just nothing special.
Later on we had pizza for dinner, then I got started on the sticky buns for Christmas Day breakfast.
I was (partially) using the Claire Saffitz recipe, but she doesn't write the steps out and the video is 25 minutes long.
She lists the ingredients in the video description, but doesn't separate all of the ingredients out.
So for example, the butter quantity is listed at 8 Tbsp, but unless you watch the video at the specific point where she uses the butter you won't know that she uses HALF the butter in the topping and HALF in the filling.
The result was that I accidentally put ALL of the butter into the topping.
It's a caramel, so it might be ok anyway...but we won't know until tomorrow. Sigh.
------------------------------------------------------
Christmas Day.
I was up early worrying about the sticky buns.
Got them into the microwave with a mug of boiling water to proof, made myself a cup of coffee, and listened to audio of my deceased parents. How's that for a cheerful start to the day, lol. But it was a good thing to do, to remember that Christmas was and is and always will be special.
After about an hour the buns looked ready to go.
They were finished right at 10am, and they looked and smelled GREAT despite the butter snafu.
Jameson was up a few minutes later, and we had hot sweet sticky buns while watching Mickey's Christmas Carol.
They were EXCELLENT. The sticky, nutty caramel sauce was at that perfect phase where it doesn't harden but becomes a sort of chewy glaze. The dough was fluffy and tender, with that floss-like texture that you see in Japanese milk bread.
I am saving this recipe, writing it out for future use.
It was the dough from a King Arthur Flour recipe combined with Claire's recipe for toppings and fillings, reduced by 1/4 to make only three buns. That's certainly enough alterations to justify calling this my own sticky bun recipe :)
The only thing I would change is that the topping was a little too salty. Easy fix.
Jameson was excited to open presents, so we did!
Just goofing off.
We started with stockings. Jameson got me many great candies, including the now-traditional Bertie Bott's Everyflavor Beans. I'm not expected to actually eat them, but we each roll the dice and eat just one. This year we BOTH got a good bean! I got a nice cappuccino bean instead of liver and onions, and jameson got strawberry banana smoothie instead of dead fish. Perhaps this year will be a good year!
Jameson's main presents were a Simpson's "Mr. Sparkle" figurine, limited edition and discontinued; a Joe Elliott pop vinyl; a set of Queen-themed socks from London Sock Exchange; a gift card for Sandgrain Studio; and Kyoho and Muscadine grape jellies from a specific prefecture in Japan, which I am especially proud of obtaining as they were extremely difficult to find.
Of course, the caveat is that I get to try one of each grape jelly ;D
As for me, I was deeply spoiled as usual!
This beautiful, handmade, engraved, ambidextrous bread knife from Etsy!!
I can't WAIT to use it!
Then, the latest Zoom Q2n-4K video recorder, which was specifically designed for musicians!
Jameson has one of these and I'm always wanting to borrow it. Now I have one of my own, plus a battery charger and stand!
He also got me a DoorDash gift card to use on the road, and an Etsy gift card (I LIVE for Etsy).
And a bottle of teaberry extract!! With it I can make teaberry ice cream, or teaberry-themed drinks or baked goods! So excited!
Oh, oh! And these Bon Bon candies! These are nostalgic for me, we used to sell them as a fundraiser for French class in high school. The strawberry ones are extremely good. Many of the other flavors are new to me and I'm looking forward to trying them.
We continued watching Christmas movies and specials and snacking on stocking treats.
Around noon I had a video chat with my sisters, then Jameson's parents called so we chatted with them too.
It was a pretty relaxing Christmas afternoon.
A few hours before dinner I got the tenderloin out and rubbed it down with coarse mustard, then a mixture of herbs and salt and peppercorn.
When dinnertime rolled around, Jameson made the mashed potatoes while I assembled the kale apple cranberry salad. When the roast was done and resting we threw some crescent rolls into the oven.
And when everything was ready, tossed the salad in a mustard viniagrette, brought out the horseradish sauce, and sliced the roast.
A festive meal indeed!
We watched Emmet Otter and ate too much.
We also tried the Japanese grape jellies, but I will save that for the next post as this one is getting pretty long.
Gosh, what a nice Christmas. Very glad I spent it with Jameson!
I hope that you all had a wonderful day as well :)
no subject
Date: 2022-12-26 09:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-12-26 09:41 pm (UTC)Yeah Christmas Day was great! As selfish as this may be, I'm VERY glad I chose to spend it with Jameson instead of with family. Way more fun, way less awkward.
no subject
Date: 2022-12-30 03:12 am (UTC)I'm glad your drive was OK! As an Illinois-(ian?) I hate driving in the snow.
no subject
Date: 2022-12-30 02:33 pm (UTC)Yeah the drive was pretty awful. Could not believe how much I got delayed. But looking forward to NOT doing it next year haha.