The second half of December was just as busy as the first. We had our firm support staff Christmas lunch where we bring in food, have fun, then give our Christmas gifts to the person whose name we drew and reveal ourselves as their Secret Santa. Hopefully, not to their disappointment!
Now, I have been told that I’m fun to buy for. Along with putting our name into the pot, we’re supposed to give gift ideas/suggestions or likes and dislikes. Of course in years past, in addition to my likes of funky socks, cats, knitting, cheese, and cat-safe Christmas decorations, my Secret Santa also could rely on the old stand-by: Chocolate. Yeah, this year, my person didn’t have that luxury. As shame really, I do so enjoy chocolate. But did well anyway. First, by giving me some fuzzy penguin socks that had Oh! Oh! Oh! (instead of Ho! Ho! Ho!) on them. I thought they were rather unique, but turns out it was just a typo. After Christmas, she told me that she’d gone back to make sure she wasn’t crazy, and she said that some of them were correct and some of them had the typo. I don’t care. I like penguins and fuzzy socks. The “quantity, not quality” gifts were the best… she got me a snowman keychain that, if you touch the metal things on the bottom of it, make the thing light up and change colors for about a minute or so! Very cool
I was going to make and bring cake balls to the lunch, but the one time that Duncan helped me make them to take to the church cookie exchange, I discovered that in addition to being easy to make, they are very messy and I ruined not one, but two batches of chocolate in the process. So I chose to take something else. But in case you’re interested in the cake balls (Duncan got the recipe from some girl in his speech class last semester when she did it for her demonstrative speech), here goes:
You bake a cake (whatever flavor you want, I chose strawberry) according to the directions. After it’s cooled, you crumble it up with a fork. Then you take a tub of store-bought icing (again whatever flavor you want, as long as it goes with the cake flavor. I chose cream cheese frosting over the strawberry because I figured it would be too much strawberry, and I love cream cheese frosting… like I was going to eat any of this!) Where was I? Oh, you take the tub of icing and mix it into the cake crumbs… here’s where the mess begins. I got some plastic gloves (like the kind doctors use, not the kind for doing dishes) and did it with my hands. Then you spoon the mess into balls. At this point, the mixture had been handled enough, so we felt it wise to refrigerate them for a little bit to help them keep their shape before proceeding. Meanwhile, we heated up some chocolate. Here’s where I went wrong. I thought I was being decadent in using Nestle Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips. What I should have been was smart and used baking chocolate. Anyway, mom used the “ruined” chocolate to make herself some fudge. No chocolate goes to waste in our house! You dip the balls into the melted chocolate and refrigerate. Be warned that after a couple of crumbly balls, the chocolate gets crummy (so to speak) and it gets more difficult to make attractive chocolate dipped things. Just all around disappointing, but they did taste good, even if they didn’t look all that good. Sigh..
The Thursday and Friday before Christmas, I took off and Mom and I went to Indy. I had my 8 month appointment with the surgeon up there and after making 7 trips to Indy and back in 2011, I was going to go up for the appointment, then go back up for Christmas!
My appointment went well. I don’t recall where I was on their scales by that time, but per my scales, I’d lost 124 pounds. I’ve STILL only lost 124 pounds, but I try to look on the positive side of that. Both the nutritionist and the doctor were pleased with my progress AND I got a t-shirt for having lost 100 pounds! Of course the t-shirt makes no mention of having lost 100 pounds, so I don’t see the point, but a free t-shirt is a free t-shirt.
Christmas with the sibs and their families went well. As usual, my gifts rocked! I’m pretty well known for giving great gifts. As for my favorites, it would be a tie between the bacon scarf I got for Duncan and the monster movie motif purse I got Brynn for her birthday. Yup, I’m good. J
Mom and I came back home Saturday, Christmas Eve, afternoon and spent Christmas with the kids. Gizmo had already commandeered the purple cat bed I got for them, before I could wrap it. And I got them some Angry Birds cat toys. And I got them a couple of Hairballs… hairy little toys with googlely eyes and Santa hats. I’m thinking it was the cat nip, but they went over very well. I got mom a map of Scotland with the various clans marked on it, so she could see where our clan came from in Scotland. It’s currently hanging over the dining room table. I’m told that the mailman was very impressed when it arrived from Scotland in the mail. Especially since in the same week, I received a package from India!
As for Rose’s loot. There were a few quantity, not quality items (pickles, Teddy Grahams, and .. let me think.. uh... string cheese), but the quality item was my iPad! After ascertaining that my Christmas bonus was NOT going to be a membership to the Jelly of the Month Club, I ordered my iPad from Best Buy, and between the bonus and Christmas money from Mom, all I had to cover was the sales tax! Boo-ya!! And topping it all off, were the gift cards to iTunes from my Secret Santa, my boss Carrie, and the sibs! So I could get tons of apps! Needless to say, there has been a lot of raising frogs and merciless slaughter of zombies via my ‘pad since I got it! And we recently played with the video conferencing between ‘pads. Holly has one, and so does Aunt Chris. We’ll have to “call” Chris someday and surprise her! (Of course, since she’ll probably read this before we actually get around to it, it won’t be that big of a surprise… hmm..)
Christmas Day, mom and I went to church and then did what I think should become a Barger family tradition, we went to Yen Chings (fa-ra-ra-ra-ra!) for their Sunday buffet (not sure if they would have had the buffet if Christmas hadn’t been on a Sunday, but that’s neither here or there) and then took in a movie and popcorn. We saw the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and again, I assumed I’d get around to giving it its own review a la me, but it’s not gonna happen, so I’ll just say it was FANTASTIC! Very violent, graphic. Yes, there’s a rape scene. And yes, I wouldn’t take my child to go see it. But, especially if you’ve read the books, the movie was GREAT! I saw the “original” Swedish movie of the book. It was good. I can’t put my finger on it, but I liked this movie better. It may be as simple as the combo of Daniel Craig and not having to read subtitles (Hey, I’m shallow, remember?), but I highly recommend this movie! Especialy if you’ve read the books.
Ok, now that I’ve referred to both of my favorite Christmas movies, I think we can bring December to a close. I worked the week between Christmas and New Years. Steve didn’t. So I got a goodly amount of stuff done.
I was not unhappy to see 2011 go. As you know, it had been eventful and everything turned out good, but the medical crap alone had me bumming’. Here’s to 2012 being a better year!
No comments:
Post a Comment