Tuesday, 12.25.2007
Returning from Midnight Mass at 2am......I still had breakfast to prep for the morning.
Egg thing happily comes together quickly...and after winding down, I was tucked in bed by 3:30am.
Christmas Day was a glorious day.
The sun was shining.....the sky was a crystal clear blue.
Pop and I woke first.....we spent the early morning hours drinking coffee, eating christmas cookies and wearing our paper crowns.
Pop told me the story of being discharged from the army on Christmas Day in 1945. He had spent 2 years, 11 months and 25 days in the the army.
He called home and asked them to come and pick him up.
The family was not expecting the call.....and apparently dropped everything and headed down in a terrible snowstorm to get him.
His mother had never seen her son in uniform. He had been gone from his family the entire time....never once with a leave home.
As he waited for the family to arrive, he and a buddy volunteered to be the altar boys at Christmas Mass. It was the last mass he ever served, and the last day in the army. Ironically, it was also the last day he ever ate turkey on Christmas Day.
While Pop and I were chatting - I popped 'egg thing' into the oven - easily figuring that by the time everyone else was up, egg thing would be ready to eat!
As the natives slowly rose, paper hats were adorned and we settled down to eat again!
I handed out stockings to everyone......
I love stockings. I think that the best gifts come from stockings....
Once stockings had been opened we gathered around the Christmas tree and began to hand out presents to open.
As usual, the opening was a flurry of ribbons, papers and the cats jumping on paper and running off with strings of ribbon caught between their little legs.......
With gifts opened, we began our holiday morning calls to all points of the country.....
- With the beautiful weather.....I announced I was going to take a walk outdoors......Pop decided to join me..While it was not my normal brisk walk/run......it was nice to share the time with him....and we walked along wishing Merry Christmas to all the other families that seemed to have the same idea!
The remainder of the day was very low key, very relaxed.
I began prepping dinner a bit early....Knowing that everything would come together quickly at the end.
My Christmas Day Menu:
Standing Rib Roast - Yorkshire Pudding
- Roasted Asparagus with Walnut Oil
- Chive Potato Gratin
It was really yummy. It was really fattening. It was worth it!
The roast was a beauty.....I roasted it simply and finished a pan gravy with the drippings, beef stock, heavy cream and butter.....It was a decadent gravy.
Roasting vegetables is my preferred way of cooking all veggies.....and these came out wonderfully. The walnut oil added a nice warmth to the dish.
During dinner we pulled out another bottle of wine, Pop enjoyed some Manhattens and we over indulged in dinner. Fantastic.
1 comment:
Yorkshire pudding is so simple to make and yet a lot of people seem to have troubles with it. Simple is hard. I'm happy to hear that yours was good- mine was the best I have made in ages (probably because the fat I trimmed off the meat for the previous night's bracciole were cooked to render their fat as the cooking medium for the pudding).
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