On Christmas morning I didn’t wake up until 6:15AM. I got up, got the fires going, made a cup of tea, and got started.
The house cat was mad, as I was about 3 hours late feeding her. I got her fed and made the dinner for the barn cats. When I got outside, it was still white, but everything had a wicked layer of ice on it.
The barn cats were delighted to be getting wet food and stopped their spirit cat ways to eat it.
The other bowl always tastes better…. Dennis the Girl is the orange one and Lily is the brown tiger.
When I got back to the house, Bryde had finished her breakfast and was back in her favorite place, under the woodstove.
I took my cup of tea and got set up to wrap presents. I’d not been able to do it on Friday.
Two hours later I had them done and under the tree. Tom had called in the meantime and said his wife had tested positive and so they would not be coming to do Christmas. We decided that he’d bring his presents for me and swap them for my presents for them and grab the huge pan of lasagna and head home. They’d stay on the porch while here.
At 9AM I got my son up and he set to work vacuuming and doing chores. I set him up to prep vegetables and set up snacks and he got to that.
I just had him do enough for me, and any if he wanted some.
While he was doing that I made a HUGE pan of lasagna, a Golden Lasagna. I put in lots of garlic, figuring the family could use all the immune booster they could get. When my son finished, he went back to bed.
Once it was done I saved out a couple pieces for me and a couple for my son, and let Tom know it was ready. He came over about an hour later and we did the present swap, very carefully, as it was very icy.
While I waited for the lasagna to cook, I called my sister and we opened presents together, over the phone.
While I was on the phone with my brother, I looked out and the metal bird feeder baffles had great long icicles on them. But I forgot to get a photo when I got off the phone and only the plastic ones had icicles when I remembered. There’d been a bright red cardinal that sat on the fencepost for the longest time when I was on the phone.
Last winter Tom and family and I had pizza nights here, cooking them in the masonry heater oven. I had the cookie sheets for making the pizzas, but none of the equipment. So Tom’s family gave me this equipment. I also got 2 lovely ornaments from my intern and her sister.
I’d decided to watch Christmas movies for the rest of the day. This was the first one.
It’s a very old movie from 1947 with Cary Grant and Loretta Young.
We’d never gotten to the stockings in the morning, so I got my son up and we did stockings about 6PM. The carpenter has a reputation for doing well on lottery tickets, so I asked him to buy me some for each stocking. But as usual, we didn’t win much; I got $5 on mine.
My son helped the old cat open hers. I put catnip in when I wrap them, so she’s very interested in them.
My best friend called later and we talked a while, then I got the barn cats done and watched another movie. I was in bed by 8PM, after a long day.
I’d managed to stay busy enough or distracted enough that I wasn’t in too bad shape, considering it’s the 1 year anniversary of my husband’s death. He died at 3:25PM on Christmas last year, here at home.
Sunday I plan to have an easy day, process the 109 photos I took over the last 2 days, and get my posts written. I should write thank you notes. And I have dishes to clean up…