Calli, maybe a fancy sauce, some nice side dishes ... good wine?

I'm actually going to suggest that my mother and I and my aunt/uncle/cousin could actually quarantine and then get together for Christmas. We'll see what they think.

I’ve decided no meal on Christmas, but making a bunch of snacks for a full day of LAZY.

I had a dream that I was doing a semester in Paris (??) but then some friends were there and there was a teeny area that could be a dance floor and someone had put on music and I got my friend to dance with me and I was nearly crying because I hadn’t danced in so long...ugh. Fucking dreams.

Calli, maybe a fancy sauce, some nice side dishes ... good wine?

Maybe a fancy sauce involving wine? Yes, these all work. Thanks!

I had a dream that I was doing a semester in Paris (??) but then some friends were there and there was a teeny area that could be a dance floor and someone had put on music and I got my friend to dance with me and I was nearly crying because I hadn’t danced in so long...ugh. Fucking dreams.

Oh, that does sound like an awesome dream.

Oh, I think I posted Monday about the problems with my computer. I had to search the office to find a docking station that matched mine, since we have multiple models. Found one, but it has a lock on it ... one of our administrators was in and checked their list to see what the combination was, so I could take off the old lock and attach the lock that was on my old docking station. They didn't have the combination - although we were supposed to let the (long-gone) administrator know what the combinations were, so it's still sitting in the docking station. On looking at it more closely, I realized someone had to CUT the cable to the lock to move the docking station - there's a stub of frayed cable attached to the lock. So ... I guess that's why I was able to abscond with the docking station. (NB: we have locks that are on cables that attach to furniture; each has a four-digit combination. We got these - two for each person, one connects the docking station and one the actual computer - because at a previous office, we had several computers stolen, since they weren't secured at all. No we have the issue of equipment being TOO secured.)

I’ve decided no meal on Christmas, but making a bunch of snacks for a full day of LAZY.

I like that plan, and it feels like what my family kind of did/does for real. For my part, it all starts with cinnamon pull apart bread. Oh, huh. Guess I need to find a GF option to replace Pillsbury biscuits. Anyway, we never had a particular Christmas Meal that I recall, or Christmas Eve one.

My mom's fudge is the one Christmas food tradition we have for sure. I used to help her sometimes (you have to beat the hell out of it by hand* forever, or it gets grainy), but I've never done it on my own. There's a candy thermometer involved. Hell, maybe I'll do it this year in honor of Mom. This will be our first Christmas without her since she died in early March (she was 91; it was not Covid), and while she was able to be, she was the Family Christmas Maven.

• It may actually be possible to beat it electronically with, like, a stand mixer, maybe, but I don't have one. And she did, but she insisted that it had to be by hand. And that shit was good, so I never argued.

Goldbelly has a Skyline chili dinner kit for folks with cravings. (The version I make at home is Skyline-ish but not a carbon copy.)

When my mother was alive, I'd go up to spend Christmas with her and my sister. On the eve, it was kind of open, but Christmas morning we started off with mimosas while we opened presents. Then breakfast - often, my mother would make buttermilk biscuits, eggs and some kind of sausage and/or bacon and/or ham. (One year I remember she plunked a big platter on the table with sausage patties, sausage links, bacon and ham ... and in the middle, was this pile of greenish-yellow stuff that was oozing a greenish oil over the platter. I commented on it and it turned out she'd used egg substitute. The reduce the cholesterol.)

Ha! That is hilarious, Toddson.