Christmas Eve

I woke up this morning to an impressive list of things I had to do today. It goes something like this: peel, boil, and mash sweet potatoes; mix sweet potato casserole; make sweet potato pie; mix broccoli casserole; make Mammaw's fruitcake cookies; make Bartley Snacks; make sausage balls; make dinner rolls; and finally, slice up Turkish Delight and coat with powdered sugar. I ran into a snag pretty early on--I was almost out of sugar. That means--yes--a trip to the store! Absolutely the LAST place I want to go on Christmas Eve. Despite this difficulty, by 10:00 Santa was in Nepal, and I had finished several items on my list. So I got dressed and headed to Wal-mart. Funny thing is, the minute I walk through the door, the first person I see is Dana. And guess what she was doing. You got it, eating! It's kind of a joke at work about how she's always eating. By 2 PM, Santa was in Moscow, and I'd finished my casseroles and baked my sweet potato pies. There was a minor tragedy with the pies, though. I was supposed to cook them at 425' for 15 minutes, then turn the oven down to 350'. Well, guess what. I forgot to turn the oven down. The crusts are pretty burnt, and the top of the pies are quite brown, but the inside--read "the good part"--is ok. Then the pumpkin pies went in...I remembered to turn the heat down after the proscribed time, but forgot to reset the timer! What a day, what a day!

I went over to see Beverly, and see how things were going there. We decided not to do a big snack table since James has to work nights tonight. We'll save that for New Year's Eve. So I didn't have to do the Bartley snacks this time. I had a "Doh" moment, though. Beverly asked me if they were supposed to take some present with them when they went to Texas last week. Insert forehead smack here. I thought I was all done, now I have two more gifts to mail...Heavy sigh. At 5:15 PM, Santa was in Paris, and we went over to open gifts with them. Their dogs, Annie and Artex also joined in the festivities. Upon returning home, Cody and I watched It's A Wonderful Life and read T'was The Night Before Christmas. Cody was sure to leave some cookies and milk out for Santa. Last radar check before bed has him in Florida. He's getting close and we need to get to bed or he'll pass us by. So as the final words of that famous poem say,

"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!"

Bev and James

Me and Cody
Annie

Artex