Xmas food. Because it's all about the food.

December 30th, Saturday-Well, it's just been a whirlwind of holidays parties and after being well-fed and plyed with chocolates and pears we got to the actual Christmas night dinner and it was just the two of us. I made a standing rib roast with au jus (Oops. Didn't skim off enough of the fat.) and yorkshire pudding (gluten-free, of course), cornbread sausage stuffing (also gf), steam-baked potatoes, haricot verts (overcooked, unfortunately), and pumpkin pie. I mistakenly thought the rib roast was thawed (Big oops!) so even though I wanted sort of a late afternoon start to the dinner it turned out to be more like regular dinner time. I basically made a dinner for six for just me and Daryl. Lots. Of. Leftovers. All of the recipes were from the Julia and Jacques cookbook except for the gf yorkshire pudding. And the yorkshire pudding turned out great even though it was gluten free. It puffed up nicely out of the muffin tins. (See below.) Thank you, internet recipe forums.

And I got a lot of stuff from my Xmas list, a 10" braising pan with lid, shirts from LLBean, a little Flash drive, and a gravy boat featured in the picture above. (Daryl also got a Goth box set, a set of Looney Tunes cartoons, a car duster, and the Scrabble mugs above, along with a gift certificate.) Daryl insists that I ask for "fun" stuff for Xmas. I asked for a mop, some shirts and cooking stuff. He said that it wasn't exactly "fun." Well, ok, but I still wanted them. Microfiber, people! It's the way to clean. And who couldn't use more shirts? Especially when they're pima cotton. And for me cooking is fun. (When I'm not working two jobs at the same time, that is.) Shouldn't you be allowed to want what you want? As much as I love getting stuff, I really do think people go a bit crazy about gifts for Xmas. I think we should make Xmas all about the dinner, much like Thanksgiving. Or maybe we could extend Thanksgiving through to the end of the year? Just a suggestion.

I was pretty stressed about work, since I got a video to work on and then had to work at Disney again. I love Disney, but working when I got home from Disney was a pain. Luckily, I worked the week just before Xmas and then the week after so it was pretty low-key. The three-day weekend for Xmas was also great for de-stressing.

One of the silly things I did before Xmas was clean the windows. It was one of the coldest days of the year! And I nearly fell off the stepstool and pulled a muscle. Arg! My periformis! Bending is now a problem. So one of my resolutions for 2007 is to do more Pilates.