Christmas vacation one day at a time: CHRISTMAS

Twelve hours after going to sleep last night, I woke up.  Truth be told, I'd been having nightmares about cooking Christmas dinner but we'll get to that.

Mom wanted to open presents before I started cooking.  (Yes, that's right.)  I got some nice stuff, including possibly the cutest pajama pants in life.  I can't tell if these are penguins or regular birds but I love them.

Mom and Dad didn't want me to do the brunch I'd thought of for Christmas.  Christmas is a hard meal to prepare because it has to do several things.  First, and most importantly, it can't be too much food or too rich because all six of us had at least one other meal with family that day.  Some of us had even more than that.  Second, it has to be brunch-ish because of the time of day.  Third, the protein can't be meat.  Fourth, it has to feed three men so what the hell do you do for a protein that isn't meat.  And because they'd been so opposed to my plans, I didn't feel like I could ask for help.  Nightmares make sense now don't they?

The menu was:

• Appetizers: Pears and cheese, apples, the rest of the canteloupe from Christmas dinner (sorry, no more prosciutto)
• Main course: Roasted potatoes and sweet potatoes; poached eggs over kale and toast, obviously, they kale had bacon in it
• Dessert: I meant to have more of the apples and cheddar from last night but I forgot to get it out and we were all full

Mom and Dad were violently opposed to the poaching of the eggs because they felt I'd screw it up and Dad ddin't want cold poached eggs, they needed to come out hot.  Ok, I had my marching orders: poach the eggs last two seconds before everything is ready to be served.

I started by cutting up the potatoes to prepare for roasting. Chopping sweet potatoes is a special brand of hell that can't be appreciated at other times.  I have actually a blister from doing it.  Ow.  The regular potatoes were a pleasure.  Into the oven for roasting.

This is where the wheels came off the wagon so to speak.  There are only two racks in the oven and two jelly-roll trays, both of which were occupied by the potatoes.  But then I needed the same two trays again for bacon (twenty minutes at least) becuase I was in no mood to fry a pound of bacon *ahem* to clean up after frying a pound of bacon, and the other tray for all the toast I had to make.  Honestly, the poor toaster would've taken all morning and I already had the oven warm by this point. Meanwhile the kale is steaming on the stove top.  The bacon took a little longer than expected.

Ultimatley getting the kale and bacon together and then getting it on the toast (oh shoot, I just now realized I think I forgot to add vinegar to the kale, no wonder it tasted not quite right but still awesome because of the bacon) was fine.  I only screwed up one egg, broke the yolk trying to get it out of the water, it was fine going in.

Mom and Dad said they were sorry later.

After lunch I prepared the "baby shower" portion of the party favors for Sunday.  (I hope Mom and Dad to be feel better soon; they're both laid up in bed in Brooklyn).

Then, mercifully, Mom and Dad released me from servitude long enough to go for a run.  I ran hills, Cincinnati style and again I say Shovel your sidewalks.  I knew I'd be ok running in the street on Christmas day but I assure you, this is the only day I'll even be trying it.

After running, I headed down to Kentucky with the parents to get my Christmas spaghetti.  (I'm sure I've mentioned that meal before.  Oh yeah, every year in fact.)  It was a small crowd for spaghetti, just Aunt Barb and Uncle Tom (yes, I did just feed them the night before) and John, Jen and their two boys, Ben and Luke who was my playmate for the evening.  Lucky me because I had a blast.  We read about Santa, a dragon and a magical pomegranate and we played with blocks.  Then for fun, Luke texted Amanda all kinds of stuff. 

Christmas Spaghetti - my favorite meal of the entire year

Pictures like this are the reason you should let a 3-year-old use your camera!

Shoes: Almost as good as spaghetti

My favorite 3 year old in the whole world - he looks that sweet every time I see him!

When we got home tonight Mom started to go into panic mode about the party tomorrow.  My responsibilities are done.  I was meal captain for both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day just to get out of being captain for tomorrow.  I'm upstairs typing blog entries for the past few days just to stay out of the wave of panic.  And I'm in my cute pants. Merry Christmas!