I think my plan to be a Haus frau extraordinaire in retirement has gone kaput. After my sewing debacle earlier in the month I had high hopes as I moved my holiday preparation efforts into the kitchen. First up was baking cookies! What could go wrong there, right…wrong! I had already scratched making one of my favorites, pecan tassies, as they always boil over in the oven and come out with the wrong filling to crust ratio. I prepared both cut out and spritzer doughs which I froze for baking later. Then I moved on to making molasses cookies and chocolate crinkles. The molasses cookies came out flatter than pancakes and the chocolate crinkles came out looking like they went in… like golf balls.
Several days later I took on the spritzer cookies and experienced nothing but trouble trying to get my battery operated spritz maker to operate properly. I couldn’t get the pressor to work consistently and it all turned into a slippery frustrating mess that took way longer than it should have. I consulted the user’s manual, after the fact, and think I have some gadget assembly tinkering to do next time I pull the thing out, if I ever do. To ease my aching back muscles, I went to retrieve my heated back buddy from the microwave only to find it black and smoking; stunk up the whole house so we had to open windows and put the fans on to clear out the smoke and smell. At that point, I crumpled up and threw away my holiday baking list which included many other tasty items I had hoped to try. The sugar cookie dough remains in the freezer; maybe I will have recovered enough by February to try those for Valentine’s Day.
My sister and husband were planning to bring my mother to Flagstaff for Christmas but Covid scratched that plan. As such, I quickly boxed up her gifts and got them in the mail Christmas week hoping she receives them before year end. I should have put the tasty fruit cake I ordered online in the box because it somehow disappeared here. Then my sister in law, Diana, had a Covid scare so our plans to spend Christmas Eve with my Brother Mark’s family were nixed. Fortunately, we had some friends with no plans so we invited them over for roast pork, sauerkraut and mashed potato supper. The wine flowed and, although misshapen, the Christmas cookies even tasted good.
We woke up Christmas morning with a call from my brother that Diana’s Covid test came back negative so plans to spend Christmas day at their house in Williams were back on. We packed up and headed over around noon and had a great afternoon and evening with other extended family members. I had ordered some holiday puzzles and we actually got one put together without mom’s assistance this year. As proof, I did need to send her a picture of the completed puzzle.
Anyway, we spent the rest of the holiday weekend laying low reading and I put Christmas 2020 to bed. I guess lots of folks feel that way about the whole year so onward and upward into 2021. Hope you all enjoyed your holiday even if it looked a bit different this year.