Marion's Miscellaneous Musings

It is all over but the shouting. I mean, cleanup. That means me.

So far the stove is surviving correct handling. The turkey stock has been simmering for 3 hours and the stove has not non-catastrophically failed again.

The presents were all well-received. The daughter requested Star Trek: Enterprise, Season 3. When she opened the present from Dad and found season 4, she said that she might love him. When she opened season 3 from Tami, she declared that she loved Tami better than Dad. When she opened season 1 from Santa, she began to suspect something. When I tossed her a present and said "I think you know what this is!" she looked at me strangely -- turns out she had just opened a book intended for Tami. Oh well. Then she curled up in Daddy's lap again, she is fighting a cold.

I was pleased with my gifts, but then I got a lot of stuff on my list. I'll have to think up more next time. I got chocolate, I'm happy.

Lindsey likes the present from Grandma and Grandpa the best. Just ask me.

Grandma proceeded to show everyone how to make Lindsey laugh. That is, just make a complete fool of yourself! And Lindsey laughed. Here's proof!

Then we ate dinner, which, given the volume of candy left over from the gingerbread house (approximately equal in volume to the gingerbread house itself, including the inside!), the amount of other candies, the amount of cookies received from Germany, the amount of cookies made here....well, we didn't need so much dinner. Basically, turkey with stuffing (requested by Tami; she said she doesn't get turkey often in Germany), mashed potatoes, gravy and broccoli. Notice the attempt at healthy eating. What we needed was turkey (no gravy) and broccoli.

Then cheesecake for dessert. It's main selling point is that it expired soon, and the store sold it for $5 instead of $15.

After that, Lindsey continued in his quest to imitate the perfect pretzel (see picture), with grandpa's able help. Jack specializes in holding sleeping babies.