Another Christmas

The last time my weekly Sunday blog post fell on Christmas was in 2011. It's a nice way to wrap up the yuletide season, playing Christmas music while reflecting on what has happened. (I guess if we really celebrated Yule, or Giuli as it was known in the 700s, it would still be the beginning.)

This year, I put up a lot of lights, although some of them I didn't get up until pretty late in the season. And most of them are inside the house. I don't really feel safe putting lights up on our exceedingly high roof. but many lights are in our windows. I always like turning out the regular lights and seeing how bright the other lights are. Our living room is especially bright. (But these are still dark enough that you can't entirely tell how unstraightened the house is.)

The family room with our pink tree

The exercise room

The other exercise room/office

The stairwell and living room, with my little live tree

The living room

The dining room

The garage, the only outside lights. Oh, we also had a thing on the fence, but I forgot to take a picture.

My bedroom

I didn't have to work on December 23, so that was a nice break. That meant that on December 22, I could be out late, and I went to my weekly tutoring. Only one kid was there, but I helped him with point-slope formula. It was sad without Camille there, the one in charge of the tutoring, since she's still in the hospital. (If you are a drunk driver reading this, I hate you.) Then I went to Walmart downtown, since I was there, and since I have begun my search for the next item I'm reviewing for The Impulsive Buy, and since I had a few Christmas items to buy. It seemed that all the lines were going slow, but I can't imagine any of them were as slow as the one I was in. I was literally in line for thirty minutes. I think the cashier was new. As I was handing her my reusable bag, I had two in my hand, but I only needed to give her one, so I was trying to make sure she only got one. But she was trying to make a joke and said, "Thank you for giving me your bags!" as though I had gifted her the bags. But I didn't get it. It was really awkward, partly because I'm really awkward, but partly because it was a weird situation. (What kind of joke is that?) I was glad to get out of there. I spent more time in line than I did shopping.

I did lots of cooking on Friday. I tried to make a carrot and quinoa rösti--it didn't stick together like it should have, but it was very tasty. Probably from all the butter.

I had to boil the carrots, and I saved the water to use for vegetable stock. I was surprised to find it was green! In September we had pink juice from green grapes--why do green things yield pink, and orange things yield green?

When I was in high school, I began a tradition of watching all of my holiday shows every year, with a designated show per day. This year, I decided not to do that anymore (I was getting tired of some of them), and of all the shows I own, I only watched one, Arthur Christmas, which I bought only recently and which I hadn't seen since it was in theaters five years ago. I think it's a brilliant premise, but the execution of it has some flaws. Since I only watch terrible 1960s sitcoms, I was able to catch the Christmas episodes of My Mother the Car (yes, really) and The Monkees.

Then we had a bit of an unusual Christmas day. I don't remember such a snowy Christmas! It's nice that after a few years of dry Christmases, these last three have been white. Wait--what am I talking about!? I'm liking snow less and less! Christmas has a way of romanticizing bad things.

I went to my home ward for Christmas, and then my YSA ward was cancelled for snow, but I wouldn't have gone anyway, just for time's sake. Then we had to wait around for my sister and niece to come over to open presents. I got a little herb garden, which should be nice if I can actually grow anything (I was lacking chives for the carrot dish), since it seems wasteful buying herbs and letting them rot in the fridge. (Oh yeah, that was another thing I did on Christmas Eve, cleaned out the fridge. Moldy Brussels sprouts made it smell bad.) I also got an Amazon Echo, a fun device I can talk to. I still have to figure out how to get it to do everything I want, but it's been amusing.

I also gave a sequin blanket, a Nauvoo Temple "Lego" set, a KitchenAid spiralizer, and a few books.

It's been a merry Christmas. But an unusual one.

***
This will be the last installment for pumpkinundation roundup. I mean, I can still eat pumpkin things this week, but I don't want to spend New Year's Day writing about it. I don't know whether or not this will return next year, as The Impulsive Buy is sort of filling that niche. We'll see.

This week has two weeks worth of pumpkin, gingerbread, peppermint, eggnog, etc. things, since I didn't want to detract from last week's content.

 I tried this Torani peppermint syrup in hot chocolate, but I think peppermint's so easy to do that this syrup isn't worth it. 3/5. (I much prefer Stephen's Candy Cane Hot Cocoa, which I forgot to take a picture of. My dad said it was "sugar cane" flavored! 5/5.)

 I had this Yogurtland white chocolate peppermint yogurt, which is branded with Trolls, which are hideous to me (and I collected Trolls as a kid!). It tasted like yogurt. It didn't seem very minty or white chocolatey to me. 3/5.

 A few days after Christmas in 2005, I said they should make candy cane Tootsie Roll Pops. My mom said they did. So in 2006, I had them, and I've loved them since then. These Candy Cane Tootsie Pop Drops are the same thing, only smaller and without a stick. The peppermint is good, but I like the bigger Tootsie Roll in the regular Pops better. 4/5.

 For a pumpkin item, I had this Winder Farms Pumpkin Spice Egg Nog. It's some of the best eggnog I've ever had. I don't know if that's because of the brand or because of pumpkin spice. 5/5.

 At tutoring, the couple in charge brought these gingerbread bars. They were good, with the familiar molasses gingerbread taste. 4/5.

 I had a Roxberry Peppermint Kiss smoothie. It wasn't terribly minty, but it was good. 4/5.

 These Iced Gingerbread Clif Bars mostly taste like Clif Bars in general, but there is definitely some molasses in there. 3.5/5.

 This Eclipse Candy Cane Peppermint gum tastes like toothpaste. There's nothing wrong with that in gum, but it's supposed to taste like candy mint, not dental mint. The Trident kind is better. 3.5/5.

 I tried this So Delicious Mint Chocolate Coconut Milk. I've liked it less as I've had more. It's intriguing, but the texture's a little weird. Definitely chocolate mint though. 3.5/5.

 I bought this Franz Gingerbread Streusel bread. It tastes very much like gingerbread, with molasses and spices. But it's less sweet than I would like. 4/5.

 Chocolate Candy Cane & Pretzel Goldfish are one of the more random items I've had. The chocolate bits are standard chocolate graham fare, with a bit of a minty flavor. I'm not sure why they included the pretzels. It's not a bad combo, but I don't think it makes the chocolate any better. So weird. 3.5/5.

 I loved the pumpkin cheesecake version of this gum, so I thought I'd try the Project 7 Gingerbread Snap Gourmet. They nailed the pumpkin cheesecake flavor, but not gingerbread, which seemed more cheesecakey to me. Still good in its own way, though. 3.5/5.

 I first had this Holiday Sprinkles Cookie Crisp last year. It's supposed to be like sugar cookies. It's good but not great. 3.5/5.

 My mom got these Peppermint Fat Boy Ice Cream Sandwiches. The peppermint isn't overwhelming, so these are pretty similar to plain ice cream sandwiches. That's not a bad thing. 5/5.

 I found this gingerbread cookie recipe via Pinterest, but I don't know if I could find it again. They were amazing. They're a little crispy, but still chewy. 5/5.

 You guys convinced me that pumpkin pie is a Christmas dessert, so I made one. Back in October, I pureed a fresh pumpkin, then froze it. It was weird to thaw it in December, because it smelled like Halloween. I accidentally used sweetened condensed milk instead of evaporated milk, but it turned out great. 5/5.

 It was even better than Chuck-A-Rama pumpkin pie (on the right), though it's hard to do pumpkin pie wrong. 4.5/5. They also had a white cake with some small peppermint pieces on top (on the left), which was OK. 4/5.

 I remember having these Hershey's Chocolate Mint Candy Canes at my Melville grandparents' when I was a kid. Chocolate and mint are a great combination, but chocolate never does well in hard candy. 3/5.

 I love making wassail on Christmas Eve with apple and orange juice, cinnamon sticks, whole cloves, nutmeg, and other things floating in it. 5/5.

 I got these Sweet's Eggnog Taffys in my stocking. I know it's Sweet's because I've had them before. They do taste reminiscent of eggnog. 4/5.

 I told my mom this candy cane tasted like coffee, but she told me there weren't any coffee ones (there were three flavors in the box). She thought Brach's Caramel Macchiato Candy Canes were cherry flavored. (She was obviously thinking "maraschino.") These are even made with coffee. I don't drink coffee, so I don't think I can fairly judge them, but 3/5. I ate it all before I found the box and learned it really was coffee.

Then I made cranberry orange crisp for Christmas. Cranberry-orange is an underused Christmas combo, I think. I liked it, but I've made better fruit crisps. 4/5.