December 26th, 2018

Merry Christmas yesterday!  I hope your celebration was very fun and filled with love and laughter ;)  I look forward to hearing all about each and every one of your Christmas's.

Ours was awesome.  Actually we kind of have two Christmases every year now.  Lucky us!  We share a Christmas Eve Celebration on the day and/or night before Christmas with Joy and Bob first and then on the actual official December 25th, we have our own quiet celebration together on Christmas Day.  

Our Christmas Eve celebration began with a cookie disaster.  I was assigned to bring dessert.  No worries.  Bringing dessert it kind of my thing.  I decided to make these lovely walnut/caramel cookie bars.  Whipped them up and tucked them into the oven.  While they were cooking I thought it might be a good idea to knock out a batch of cinnamon rolls as well for our Christmas Morning special breakfast.   As soon as the cookies came out of the oven looking absolutely perfect, golden brown on top and puffed up tall.  I turned off the oven, left the door open and left the cinnamon roll dough to rise.  Meanwhile allowing the cookie bars to cool,  I piddled around the house doing other little things for a bit.  Finally, they were cooled off enough to cut them into squares.  The instant the knife broke through that lovely golden crust I knew something was wrong.  The outside was perfect. Absolutely gorgeous. The inside wasn't baked. It's as if my oven said, 'Ok looks good to me' and shut itself off. There is something seriously wrong with my oven!  So off we went to the grocery store bakery to BUY a dessert.  Which doesn't sit well with me.  But having no dessert at all sits even less well so whatcha gonna do?  On the way home, we did a few other little things ending with us being gone, probably an hour.  Walked in and immediately checked the dough. Did Not Rise At All! ARGH!  Bad baking day.

BUT life goes on.  Bought the above cake which is kind of cute really.  We arrived at Joy & Bob's at the designated time, cake and fat jolly stockings in hand!  We ate and played with kittens and chatted until it was time to get on a trolley and view Christmas Lights! Tim appears to be sporting a halo in the photo below.  Don't you love Bob's Santa tie?  And Joy's light up shirt (under her furry poncho)?  And of course my Santa hat!  We were in the spirit of the event for sure.  Woohoo!

Our Trolley driver was very nice and the trolley itself was fully decked, Christmas-Wise and he played  Christmas music they entire time we were out. Most of us, sang along ;)   The trolley cruised through various Sarasota neighborhoods that had particularly outstanding light displays.  At first, I found myself uttering a lot of "Oh my's!"  when one came into view.  Then we moved on to, "My word!'  and ended up with "Mercy!".  I think part of my brain was admiring the spectacle and fully enjoying it and the other part of my brain was toting up the cost of the the lights, the energy involved with both setting up and taking down the display, wondering where they store it the other 11 months of the year and considering the light bill.  But that's just the way my demented mind works.  

Mind still reeling from the wonderful light displays, we headed back to Joy and Bob's to have cake and, the best part always, open gifts!   With some kitten assistance, we, each one in turn, one gift at a time, one person at a time, opened our stocking gifts.  As per usual, they were perfect stockings.  Some gifts silly, some useful, some funny, some edible, some sentimental and all wonderful.  The funniest part, to me anyway, was the similarity in gifts that Tim and Bob bought each other!  It was too funny.  Winston the cat was particularly interested in an old fashioned top  that was in Bob's stocking.  Charlie the cat didn't care about in stocking innards, he wanted the ribbons and bows.

The Santa slippers, by the way, were one of my gifts, as were the snazzy red reading glasses.   I think I wear both exceedingly well ;)

It was quite late by the time we finally headed back home but it was a wonderful Christmas Eve celebration again this year.  We alternate hosting, so next year, it's our turn again.  I am already considering ideas for how to make it even more special than the year before.

So that was our Christmas Eve.  It has become a new tradition.  That's the thing about traditions. They all have to start somewhere. When we first moved to Florida, as we anticipated the holidays we were kind of at a loss.  The kids are all up in New England and Christmas is such a terrible time of year to travel that it's never a good idea.  When we first arrived here, of course, we didn't really know anybody. It was just Tim and I.   We actually considered being away on Christmas and making that our new tradition rather than just having it be kind of a sad and empty day. Then Joy and I talked about sharing Christmas Eve and before you know it, a new tradition was born.  Now the holidays just wouldn't  feel the same without the old (new) tradition.

Hope your Christmas Eve celebration was Even Better than ours was. Although, frankly, it would be hard to top.