FFF hosted by Susanne!
Are your Christmas plans as crazy as mine. I believe the craziness is from within. This time of year, I dream of Christmases from long ago, and I think “let’s celebrate like we did then. .. carols around the spinet, cakes that were baked days before now packed away in a cool place, mulling in a bit of spirits.. Grandma always made the most delectable Christmas cakes. And the ginger bread made the house tingle your spirit when you entered the back door. Sometimes, I think I didn’t get any of her genes. Her imagination, but alas, not her initiative.
Oh well, let’s consider my kind of Christmas.This week has been fast paced and slow at the same time! If that’s not crazy! Sunday, the food basket items were due at church.. and Sunday school was great, as usual. I am sad that our best buds at church changed classes .. It is good to move about in classes until you find a good fit, I suppose, but I will miss them. So glad we have a lovely habit of going out for Sunday lunch after church. Sunday, we went to a very popular deli and there sat two tables of dear friends from the church we attended almost 50 years ago. So wonderful to be remembered by name. Well, I remembered them,as well, but it is crazy how long ago that was.. yet in some ways it seemed like.. well last decade!
Monday was a crazy, busy day! The dining room table was a mass of gifts and wrapping paper. I really get antsy on those days.I am always so anxious to get the chore done so I can redo the Christmas table! When Lynn took over the wrapping station, I headed to the kitchen to make my very first chicken pot pie. Thankfully, I had it easy. We had purchased a rotisserie chicken and a pre made rolled up pastry for the top. The recipe was easy. Just cook up the veggies, then create your roue’, add in the milk. then stirring seemed to take forever! Finally time to pour it all into the baking pan, and top , trim, and crimp the pastry edges…into the oven and soon the aroma in the kitchen reminded me of home. Mom had made this dish several times and I was wishing now it was for our dinner, but I was fulfilling a task for Meal Train. We took our pie, a lovely tossed salad and a chocolate cream pie from the freezer to a sweet lady at church who is recouping from surgery.After visiting with her, I was feeling so wonderful to know how we had blessed her in just that little way!
Well, the table stayed messy all the Tuesday as well! It wasn’t that we had so many gifts to wrap, it just seemed we were moving so slowly. Then, suddenly it seemed like the day just sped by like sands in an hour glass on steroids. And before we knew it we were taking Lynn to his new ophthalmologist appointment. Our beloved past Dr. took early retirement! Seeing our new doctor brought back memories from over thirty years ago when we first visited with our previous Dr. right out of college. They truly looked so much the same. It was sort of like time repeating itself. Now that felt crazy! But the best part of the day was Lynn took us out for supper that late afternoon . We couldn’t think of a place to go.. so many of our favorite spots have closed. Suddenly, I remembered that Bellagino’s serves more than pizza. I used to really enjoy their spaghetti dinners, too. So that was our Tuesday and Wednesday night’s dinner, too.
I finally got the dining room table back, so I was able to create a new Christmas arrangement. I was so thrilled to find those Royal Stafford bowls at Home Goods!
I matched them up with my red and white transferware for Christmas.
These bowls are really inspiring me to consider batches of home made soups this Christmas. We loved our Butternut squash soup on Thanksgiving. And I have been looking for some great recipes for the holidays, especially with this frigid blast of air coming our way!
You probably noted that I haven't even washed the new dishes nor removed their Royal Stafford label. Well, of course, I will before we dine here. This was just for a initial set up! hahaha I know, I'm crazy!
Yesterday, we got to FaceTime with our family in Massachusetts. It is so amazing to see our granddaughters . …how much they seem to grow between our visits. It was thrilling to hear our almost 7 year old tell us she had a spiritual talk with a student in her class about Jesus. He was the one to bring up the topic and seemed very interested in what she had to say. I am praying that she will have opportunity to continue the topic sometime soon. What a blessing she and her sister are to us!
