Better Late Than Never
The day before yesterday, we had my family Christmas dinner & celebration. It’s a bit late because my mom’s being treated for breast cancer. As a result our holiday celebrations have been been worked around doctor’s visits and other appointments. After being postponed once, we were finally able to get together to celebrate on Monday. We’ve never been big on going all out, generally a simple affair is what we like. We gather for a meal, a few small gifts and then coffee and conversation.
Since I’m usually in charge of most of the cooking, it’s a deliciously local affair. This year the main star of the meal was a nitrate free ham cured by Whitefeather Meats from a hog raised by some friends of ours. There were au gratin potatoes and brussels sprouts that were 100% local. The rolls weren’t all local, the flour came from King Arthur, but the rest of the ingredients were local. (here’s my recipe for dinner rolls if you’re needing a good one)
My sister also brought mashed potatoes, homegrown green beans and corn, but I somehow didn’t get a photo of those or the HUGE plate of cookies and treat she made with the nieces & nephew. Probably because as soon as the ham came out the oven everyone descended on it like vultures. It was quite delicious, both of my parents said it reminded them of the ham they enjoyed for the holidays when they were kids.
Then we gather round while my dad reads the Christmas Story from the Bible. Then we go around and open gifts one at a time starting at the youngest and working our way up to the oldest. After the gifts were exchanged, we made some homemade ice cream to eat over the pie I made. It was a simple celebration just like all the years gone by and it was nice finally be able to celebrate this milestone even if it was a little later than usual. Since we were so late in celebrating our Christmas, we also postponed our New Year’s meal (Mr Chiots and I had the traditional meal by ourselves here at home). We’re planning our New Year’s meal of sauerkraut & pork in a few weeks, better late than never I guess. After all holidays aren’t about the specific day of the week/month/year, they’re about spending time with those you love!
Does your holiday meal consist of the same dishes each year or do they change? Do you have specific dishes made by specific people?
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Behind the Scenes
If you’ve been reading here for a while, you know that Mr Chiots and I own a business and are self-employed (our business is 2nd Mile Productions). Mr Chiots does websites (new Chiot’s Run blog in the works) and we do video production as well. We love being self-employed, but sometimes it can be a bit of a challenge as well. Last week we spent the better part of two days filming and editing a couple videos for Ethel Gloves. I had to laugh when I came out of the office and headed down the hallway to the kitchen; our kitchen had been turned into a set.
It’s not just for our video jobs that this happens either, since almost every thing in our lives is photographed for this blog, you’ll find me taking photos of our food right before we eat, the garden while I’m working, and my life in general as things happen. I sometimes wonder if my family gets sick of seeing my camera more than they see my face! My life is definitely not “normal”, but then again, who’s life is?
What would you like to see us make a video about?
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Quote of the Day: Benjamin Franklin
Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man.
~Benjamin Franklin
New Years Resolutions do not get made here, but I do try to focus on making myself better each and every year. It’s not something I sit down and decide to do when the new year arrives, but something I think about all year long. Generally, I notice things throughout the year and try to be proactive about changing them. I think so many people fall off the resolution bandwagon because they wait till New Year’s to make big changes instead of making small adjustments all year long.
Do you make resolutions? What are some of yours this year?
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Sprucing Up the Cottage
Mr Chiots and I are very handy people and enjoy working on home improvement projects. Over the past couple years we’ve been focusing more on the gardens than on the house. Now that there’s a possibility that we might sell this house, we have a few projects to get done to make it more attractive to future buyers.
The first project we’re going to tackle is to install new countertops. We’ve been wanting to do this for quite a while, but it just hasn’t happened. If I had all the money in the world and was planning on living here forever, I would put in soapstone counters. That’s not the case however, so we decided that butcher block countertops would be the way to go. Lucky for us, our kitchen is small, so it won’t be a very expensive endeavor.
We’ve been measuring and shopping around, figuring up how much this project is going to cost. We think it’s a wise place to put our money as it will make out kitchen look very nice and help set our house apart from others on the market. I’ll be making a how-to video for Ethel during the process so you’ll get to see exactly how it’s done.
The list of things we have to get done is quite long. On that list is: redoing the floors in the main bathroom, new porch posts, finish the entire upstairs as it’s completely unfinished, new door to the outside in the kitchen, as well as a lot of garden chores. It’s shaping up to be a very busy 2012, but we wouldn’t have it any other way!
Do you have any home improvement projects in your future? What kind of kitchen counters are your favorite?
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007 Days of Christmas
For quite a few years now Mr Chiots and I have been spending the week between Christmas and New Year’s watching as many James Bond movies as we can fit in. It all started years ago when Spike TV had the 007 days of Christmas and playing James Bond movies 24/7 during this week. We used to watch them on cable, but then we cancelled that. Then we had Netflix and would get them from there and the library, but the library copies never played very well and we cancelled our Netflix. This year we decided we’d start buying a few of the 007 movies on blu-ray each year until we have the entire series.
We especially love the old James Bond movies, there’s just something fun about them. I don’t know if I have a favorite Bond, I like them all for various reasons. I’m certainly looking forward to the new one that’s scheduled to come out in late 2012.
The blu-ray copies are fantastic, they remastered them from the original reels and they did a great job. We’ve only had time to watch two so far, but we have the rest of the week to go and we’re looking forward to seeing the rest. We’ll actually be taking a few evenings off, popping up some popcorn, and snuggling up on the couch to get our fill of James Bond!
What’s your favorite old movie?
