With Thanksgiving behind us, Christmas selling is kicking into high gear. As I headed to get a haircut, I noticed a manger scene on sale outside an antique store. The ensemble is priced at $295, but can be purchased piecemeal. A baby Jesus that lights up is a mere $40, the manger is extra.
Category: Holidays
Thanksgiving 2023
It’s finally time for dessert: Dwight’s apple crisp and whipped cream. Life is good. Grateful. Table centerpiece by LEGO from a kit, rolling plant racks by Dwight with lighting by Tom.
Pieceful Thanksgiving
With Dwight immersed in his Sunday plant-care routine, I assembled the first 400 pieces (out of 800) of a LEGO dried flower centerpiece for Thanksgiving. The end result, though lacking some apparently superfluous parts, seems OK to me.
Twelfth Night 2023
Today’s Twelfth Night, so followed tradition and took down Christmas decorations.
Fruitcake
Enjoyed a slice of my mother-in-law’s excellent fruitcake. I grew up in the UK where most people seem to love fruitcake, not so much here in the USA. The BBC Website instructs cooks to feed the cake with alcohol every two weeks until Christmas. That might explain the difference.
Getting New Year’s Done
(Virtually) relocated to Madrid to celebrate the arrival of 2023 at 5:00 pm Central, an annual tradition for us. Set up a VPN to Spain’s RTVE 1, a national public TV channel. With that done, made our traditional paella.
Seeing in the New Year with Seafood
On today’s walk I was on a mission: buy ingredients for our traditional New Year’s Eve paella. Coastal Seafoods, hidden in an industrial area, sells the best seafood in town. It was hopping, so I took a numbered ticket and browsed while fifteen customers ahead of me got served.
Jigsaw Puzzle
Dwight’s mom is staying with us for New Year’s. Set up a jigsaw puzzle that’s guaranteed to become an obsession.
Sated
We ate well, not too many leftovers. They’ll be making surprise appearances from the fridge and freezer over the next couple weeks.
Christmas Eve
Kicked off the festivities with lefse for lunch (a nod to Norway, Dwight’s distant heritage). Tonight: fish pie (a nod to the UK, my heritage). Christmas Day dinner will nod to North Africa (just because…).