Picture-Perfect Christmas
Dec. 22nd, 2003 12:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
carynb
So, after too many hours of travel yesterday (from the time I left my apartment to the time we reached my parent's house, about 12 hours), I arrived in Newfoundland.
I met my sister at the airport in Halifax as planned, and we talked the whole way home, without bringing up pop culture once. Very odd - apparently we both have lives now, and don't need to talk about either our jobs or TV in order to talk for 2 hours straight. We get along great, always have, but our main topics of conversation have a long history of being things like Buffy or Alias. So, that was nice. The landing here in town was one of the roughest I've had, though – the pilot actually touched down hard enough to pop open an overhead bin just ahead of us.
As soon as we got up this morning, Mom put us to work on the whole decorating-the-house thing. She was baking a cherry cake, and K & I got to do all the unpacking of decorations, trying to remember where we usually put them, and then getting everything set up the way Mom likes it. Next year will be an experience - Mom & Dad will be in a new house, so we'll have to come up with all new places for things.
Then, once Dad got home, we started decorating the tree. Meanwhile, all day long perfect Christmas snow was falling just outside the windows. Big, fluffy flakes just drifting down slowly, with hardly a breeze to stir them. Practically a Currier & Ives painting - Christmas carols on the stereo, the three of us hanging bulbs on the tree, and these huge snowflakes drifting down outside. We got probably 6 inches overall - enough to get a good dusting, since it was 10 degrees C here yesterday and most of what was down before melted.
Then, dinner tonight was a full Christmas dinner at Mom's cousin's house. She & her husband are going out of town for Christmas, and so they did doing Christmas at their place early. She's been in a little trouble lately, and had thought that people wouldn’t show because of it. We were the last to arrive, and when she looked at Mom and said, "Everybody came", and smiled, I was very happy for her. She's a nice person, a good person, and the stuff that's happened to her recently doesn’t really seem to have been her fault, so I’m really glad we could all make it.
I met my sister at the airport in Halifax as planned, and we talked the whole way home, without bringing up pop culture once. Very odd - apparently we both have lives now, and don't need to talk about either our jobs or TV in order to talk for 2 hours straight. We get along great, always have, but our main topics of conversation have a long history of being things like Buffy or Alias. So, that was nice. The landing here in town was one of the roughest I've had, though – the pilot actually touched down hard enough to pop open an overhead bin just ahead of us.
As soon as we got up this morning, Mom put us to work on the whole decorating-the-house thing. She was baking a cherry cake, and K & I got to do all the unpacking of decorations, trying to remember where we usually put them, and then getting everything set up the way Mom likes it. Next year will be an experience - Mom & Dad will be in a new house, so we'll have to come up with all new places for things.
Then, once Dad got home, we started decorating the tree. Meanwhile, all day long perfect Christmas snow was falling just outside the windows. Big, fluffy flakes just drifting down slowly, with hardly a breeze to stir them. Practically a Currier & Ives painting - Christmas carols on the stereo, the three of us hanging bulbs on the tree, and these huge snowflakes drifting down outside. We got probably 6 inches overall - enough to get a good dusting, since it was 10 degrees C here yesterday and most of what was down before melted.
Then, dinner tonight was a full Christmas dinner at Mom's cousin's house. She & her husband are going out of town for Christmas, and so they did doing Christmas at their place early. She's been in a little trouble lately, and had thought that people wouldn’t show because of it. We were the last to arrive, and when she looked at Mom and said, "Everybody came", and smiled, I was very happy for her. She's a nice person, a good person, and the stuff that's happened to her recently doesn’t really seem to have been her fault, so I’m really glad we could all make it.
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no subject
Date: 2003-12-22 02:14 pm (UTC)Sounds gorgeous. Can you try to send some of that fluffy white snow our way? I'd love to have some of that instead of this darn rain!
no subject
Date: 2003-12-23 08:15 am (UTC)BTW, could you send me your spinach dip recipe??
Spinach dip
Date: 2003-12-23 01:41 pm (UTC)Take one package frozen spinach (pre-chopped). Thaw it.
Take one small jar of mayonnaise and one equivalent-sized container of sour cream (low fat sour cream is okay, but if you do that, try to get the one with the gelatin, so the texture is right; otherwise go with full-fat).
Take one package Knorr's dried vegetable soup mix (preferably the one without the tomato; but if that's all you can find, it'll do; you'll just have slightly pink spinach dip).
Mix. Wait a few hours for the dip to mix flavours.
That's it.
Mom points out that you can play with the proportions as long as you keep the mayo and sour cream equal. (She likes it more spinach-y and sometimes puts two things of spinach in, but then sometimes needs a bit more mayo and sour cream, though less than double the amount for one thing of spinach.)
Anyway, good luck.
Re: Spinach dip
Date: 2003-12-23 07:34 pm (UTC)I appreciate it.
C