Jaci Dawn

I had a lot of failures the last couple of days, and the photo of the full Christmas moon is – technically – one of them. Like the other failures in the past 48 hours, this one is  one I can live and work with. So there’s no detail on the moon, but I did capture it perfectly round as the fog parted – and I did it without a tripod. I balanced my camera (with the 300mm lens) on the stair post. One lucky shot.

I wasn’t going to do a Christmas post, but… here I am. Blogging at 11:20PM on Christmas Day. It was very nearly a disaster. Let me list my mistakes:

1. I seriously mis-judged the popularity of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Of course, I remember the opening of the very first Star Wars movie, right down to who I went to the movie with and what theatre. It was epic. I never dreamed I would give birth to children who would love that movie as much as I did. And I certainly never imagined a SOLD OUT Christmas matinee. When does that ever happen? Oh, yeah – Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
2. I made my first-ever pecan pie. I made certain I had all the ingredients, and I had them all out on the counter when I started. Karo syrup, sugar, vanilla, eggs, chopped walnuts (OK, it was a walnut pie! Picky, picky!). I followed the instructions to a “T” and was a little surprised when the filling didn’t seem to fill the crust as expected. Oh, well. Put it in to bake and 60 minutes later realized I had forgotten to add the one cup of sugar to the syrup-vanilla-egg mix. OOPS.
3. The oven would not light. I pre-lit it at 10:50AM so I could put the ham in at 11:00 and we could dine at 2:00. I’d used the oven a couple of hours earlier when I put it on “warm” to heat up the ceramic bowl I mix my sourdough bread dough in. I had no reason to believe the sucker wouldn’t light. It didn’t just not light – there was no gas flowing to it AT ALL. No gas = no danger of huge explosion. Checked the burners. They all lit. Turned off oven, turned on oven. NOTHING, not even a faint rotten egg odor. Called in the husband. He mentions that this has happened to him, but not on a scale like this.
4. I broke one of my Spode Christmas glasses. Darn. Actually #4 was the moon pic, but since I broke the glass and I already mentioned the moon… Yeah. So I only have 3 pretty Spode Christmas glasses now.

I can’t repair #1. At least, not for the four of us. But I did hear a rumor that if I had looked a few miles south of home, I would have discovered that the nearby small town theaters are not sold out. And – get this – no passes, which means no internet pre-sales! Guess where my husband and I are going on Saturday? If I can reach my kid & her fiancé and they want to drive over here… I will have redeemed myself.

#2 wasn’t so bad. The pie is merely not as fluffy as it should be, and maybe not quite as sweet as it should be, but it is entirely palatable. Tillamook vanilla ice cream complimented the pie quite well.

#3. I made preparations to rewrap the ham and call a restaurant for reservations while my husband said a short prayer. God answered his prayer and the oven lit! Ta da! And then it over-cooked the ham. Seriously? I need a new gas range. It behaved when I put the rolls in, so at least those baked properly.

I’m going to confess something here. If you’re a fan of Pioneer Woman, don’t read any further. But, in all honesty, I nearly killed myself a few years back, stressing over a holiday dinner. My BP hit heart attack levels. I think it got up to something like 166/110. Yeah, it was Very.Scary. I didn’t go to the hospital or anything, but it was a real wake-up call to me to 1) always take my BP meds and 2) stressing isn’t worth it.

That said, we had instant mashed potatoes with instant gravy. Tasted like instant, but no blood pressure spikes. Choose your battles. At least the pie was palatable.

Presents were awesome. We’d barely poured ourselves cups of coffee before the dogs began to beg to open their presents. No, really. Murphy got excited the minute we put up the tree and he’s been scanning the window for stockings every day since. I finally hung the stockings and he got really excited. Last night, he caught Santa filling them and he nearly came unglued with excitement. He climbed on the chairs and he tried to scale the wall. He was beside himself.

Harvey is a lot more like me – he can handle delayed gratification – but he was obviously hyped for the event as well.

The “indestructible” dog toys were destroyed by Murphy within the half hour. That includes Harvey’s toy. Harvey doesn’t care – he doesn’t play. He just wanted the pleasure of opening his gift, and he got that. But the BIG hit was the homemade dog treats I made for them.

Homemade dog treats are SO simple. These were made from the remnants of a quinoa and kale soup with a chicken stock base. I tossed in a cooked yam and a gift of “bacon jelly’ that someone gave to me (don’t ask. I don’t know why, either, but it was very handy when I needed to make dog treats). Pureé. Add flour until you can roll it our without a big sticky mess. Bake at 350 for half an hour and then at 250 until hard. Turn once.

The dogs love this particular recipe. LOVE. LOVE. LOVE.

A Bigfoot ornament. I actually squealed when I opened this. Don and I shop for ornaments at this wonderful store – Christmas at the Zoo – and I found this ornament there the day I picked out Don’s ornament. I almost cried. I couldn’t possibly tell him about it because then he would know where I bought his ornament and would possibly guess what it was (a moose). So when I opened this and saw it – I squealed. I knew exactly where he found it (down to the tree and limb).

He said the girl who boxed it for him was dubious when he said it was for his wife. Silly girl! She should spend more time believing.

This was another squeal. These t-shirts kept popping up in my news feed on Facebook. I get that it’s about algorithms, but… This is so ME. The three women in my life that I call “daughter” conspired to do this for me. I love this!

This is what I gave my husband (not all that I gave him, but his stocking stuffer). Christmas Murphy. It is gouache on canvas, 3×3″.

I have an entire project lined up that is posted on my other blog, Two Crow Feather Woman. 3×3″ canvases of animals for an art show. I’ve been selling them as a sideline ($30). It’s just fun. For the main part, I’ve stuck with animal portraits, but I am adding a little anthropomorphism to the mix as well.

That said, I leave you with this last offering and an invite to like my page on Facebook as well: Two Crow Feather Woman (Link will only work if you are on Facebook)

Merry Christmas from me & Happy Penguin with a Christmas Vest!