Today in My History

2000:  Moon Flowers
2001:  Useless Flowers and Strange Rituals
2002:  From the Sublime to the Ridiculous and Back Again
2003:  Now I Just Need World Peace
2004:  We Wish You a Merry Christmas
2005:  Family Movie Night
2006:  'Twas the Night Before Christmas
2007:  Potatoes and Other Goodies
2008:  All Is Calm (Eventually)
2009:  God Bless Us Every One
2010:  I Watch Survivor; I Can DO This
2011:  Stop, Rest.
2012: Pumpkin Pie

Bitter Hack
Updated: 12/14
Santaland Diaries

Books Read in 2013
 Updated: 12/24
"Dave Barry's Worst Songs and Other Hits"

Most Recent on My

Magpie Journal

SNOW FLURRIES

25 December 2013

I tried to convince people that I had been caught in a snow flurry, but since it's 75 degrees here, nobody believed me.

That's the down side of living in California!

The real story, of course, is that this is what happens when you wear a navy blue sweatshirt with a snowman on it...and then try to bake pies.

Sadly, I have no tales of pie baking this year.  Two years ago, I couldn't find cinnamon and Jeri and I spent time grinding cinnamon sticks for the pumpkin...only to discover later that Joe and Alice were having an ant problem, cinnamon is good for discouraging ants, and so their HUGE bottle of cinnamon was in the bathroom.  Funny, that was about the only place I didn't  think to look.

Last year, I brought all the ingredients and the machines to make the pies, and then could not find a can opener to open the pumpkin.  I ended up using a bottle opener and risking life and limb trying to scrape the pumpkin out of the can, avoiding those sharp teeth trying to bite me (they actually had two can openers).

This year--no problem.  I brought pumpkin pie spice, so didn't even try to find the spices.  I found the can opener right away and except for not realizing that the new oven had a knob to turn it on (and turning it off three times using button controls I couldn't read when trying to set the timer), there was no weeping and/or gnashing of teeth...and all came out just fine.

After dinner tonight, Alice Nan hauled out some special shell ornaments.

These shells were made/decorated by a friend from Hawaii and sent to Walt's mother after the family (who lived in Hawaii for seven years in the 1950s) moved back to the mainland.  Walt and Alice Nan decorated the shell tree to use as a decoration.

Then there were the last few packages to be wrapped

and while that was going on, Tom sent a picture of Brianna putting out cookies and beer for Santa (which was what Tom put out for Santa when he was a kid.  By the time Santa got to our house, he was full of milk and needed something a bit stronger.

So Bri is following a long family tradition.  I asked Tom if he would like his Dad to come and help with the beer, but he said that "the mantle had passed."

Now off to sleep (I hope) and then get up and see what Santa has done in the night.  I hope my insomnia doesn't disrupt plans.
 

PHOTO OF THE DAY

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