Danielle Blog

Christmas recap

In case you were wondering what kinds of things I did or thought or felt over Christmas, I’ll do a recap.

The morning of Christmas Eve, I felt really really glad to realize that I had the day OFF and the next day too. I enjoyed lingering over tea, reading blogs, and reading my book. This would be the book that started off with all the dead chickens on Plow Monday, which is a terrible way to remember a book – but I fear it will always be ‘the dead chicken book’ to HB and thus to me. All weekend, he asked me if the chickens had come back to life yet.

Anyway, I will tell you that the book had quite a few twists and turns and a female character with courage, backbone, a strong sense of justice, and a willingness to put aside her own needs for the greater good of her country. Of course, since it was really a love story, albeit a complicated one, she eventually realized that putting her own needs aside for the good of the country was only worthwhile for a year or two, and eventually found a way to rule the country and have a husband too. This was a book by Laura Kinsale. I’ve read another of her books that was very striking that I own. I’ll have to request some more of her books at the library.

I had proposed the idea to HB that since I was taking the day OFF, we should (finally) go see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. And we did! Dolby Digital sound, unfortunately no one is projecting it digitally anymore, because it has been too long since it came out.

It has been a while since I read the book, which is nice, because I’d forgotten just enough that I didn’t sit there thinking “Oh, this was better in the book.” or “Oh, this is such an odd way to do this scene.” etc.

I enjoyed it. Sometimes, when I read novels, I have trouble imagining the largeness of a scene. For those of you who know what I’m talking about – the opening scene with the World Cup for Quidditch is the one I’m thinking of. I never would’ve imagined a stadium so large or a field so large.

The same is true for the dragon scenes. I don’t remember envisioning Harry’s chase to be that elaborate. And the Yule ball! I would’ve loved to have seen more of the ball.

End result: I enjoyed it a lot.

We went out for supper, as a holiday treat that I thoroughly enjoyed and I got to do something artsy that day, as you likely know.

The church service filled me with a lot of remembrances of years past. Years growing up and going to my aunt’s church for Christmas Eve (we always spent Christmas at my Grandma and Grandpa’s), driving to and from church listening to whatever radio station was playing Christmas music and singing along, looking for houses with cool lights. The singing of Oh Come All Ye Faithful and ending with the passing of the candlelight and Silent Night… and wishing we could sing more than just a few verses. The service never feeling quite like I expect it to be, but nice, all the same.

Christmas was again another day to sleep in and linger over breakfast. This time with cinnamon rolls though. It was a day of presents, and talking to family on the phone and wishing we could all be together, but making the most of our conversations on the phone instead. I received some wonderful gifts of books and music and clothes and tea and chocolate and things for our home that help make our house feel like a lovely home and a DVD of an Alison Krauss concert that made me realize how Funny she can be! And what great music she sings. And you’ve seen most of my photography experiments for the day in my post yesterday.

We had our traditional Christmas meal, which for us is:
olives & carrots to nibble on while waiting for the food to get done
dill pickle doobers – you wouldn’t believe me, if I told you.
ham
mashed potato casserole (i.e cream cheese and sour cream mixed in)
green bean casserole
cranberry relish & pineapple tidbits in cherry – raspberry jello