Merry Christmas! Bits 'n Pieces

We had a nice Christmas Day celebration. I find it interesting that I have come to view this holiday - December 25 - as a totally secular holiday since living here in Ukraine. For me, the celebration of the Birth of Christ will happen on January 7 when the Birth of Christ will be celebrated according to the Eastern Church calenday, which Ukraine follows. I wonder if it would not be good for the whole Western Church to change over to that date and let December 25th just be a secular holiday?

We had a nice late lunch of 3 kinds of lasagna. Melinda fixed her wonderful chicken lasagna and both Julia and I fixed a pan of farsh lasagna (farsh is a mix of ground beef and ground pork - altho I didn't ask Julia - maybe hers was all beef?). All three tasted really good. Not the traditional Christmas dinner by any means, but filling, fattening and comforting. Alys made delicious home made bread and turned it into garlic and cheesy garlic bread. Jamie made a Greek salad and Melinda brought a fruit salad. Martita made cookies and then a rich and satisfying Norwegian dessert of rice, whipped cream and strawberries (frozen ones that had been thawed). Jamie made cookies with Christmas colored M&M's that family sent them from the States. I made sugar cookies which I had planned on frosting, but didn't (more about that later). There were 3 different sodas to drink, water, teas and decaf coffee. Oh, and Alys also made raspberry bars for dessert. I wonder if I'm missing anything here? Needless to say, we were stuffed to the gills. I only ate lunch today and had some cookies afterward, and I'm still feeling full tonight. :)

About those cookies - at noon yesterday our power went off. I got out all the ingredients to make the cookies any way and started in on them. My hands did ok with stirring the batter because it is a soft cookie dough. I missed my electric mixer, though, and today my hands were really sore for most of the day. About the time I finished baking them all it was getting so dark in our kitchen that I just put everything else away. I figured that I couldn't see the food coloring in the frosting well enough to attempt getting the colors I really wanted. If the power came on before it was too late, then I would go ahead and frost them. They are fine without it, so either way is good.

Alys came over for dinner. The plan was we would eat a light dinner of sandwiches (hard salami and cheese on bread with pickles and tomatoes and potato chips) and then watch a Christmas movie afterward, snacking on popcorn. Well, fortunately the power did finally come on almost exactly 6 hours after it went off. I didn't frost the cookies, but we did get to watch Christmas with the Kranks. I think it was the 5th or 6th time we've watched it since Thanksgiving (we've had several people over, or we took it with us to their place :) ). Alys stayed until after 10pm and we talked and talked. At first it was talking by candlelight, but later it was talking around the table after the movie was over (our diningroom table is actually the living room table).

It seems that the power has been going off for several hours in every district around town. Not sure why. Melinda says that since hers was off for over 6 hours and then came back on she hasn't been having the brown-outs and surges like she had been having for several months. We'll have to wait and see if they've fixed something with ours, too.

Good news is that it seems a bit warmer in here. I don't even have a turtleneck sweater on tonight although it is 32 degrees outside and 67 degrees in here. Several days ago when it was 32 outside, it was only 62 in here. Those 5 degrees make a huge difference! I can also tell it is warmer because several nights ago I put an extra afghan on the bed and now I need to take it off - we both are getting too hot in the middle of the night, then we kick off the covers and wake up a little later cold. Cheyenne likes it warm like that, tho. heh heh (That extra afghan was made last year at this time by my Aunt Chris, who is only 2 or 3 older than I, so don't think "little old lady crocheting in her rocking chair." I wasn't sure I'd ever use it to actually keep warm, but for decoration only - little did I know! We've used it a lot this fall/winter!)

Mel and I made sure we were home by 8pm tonight. John got off work and made it home by about 8:15 our time, so they turned on their computer webcam and I got to watch them open several presents. Peter was there. Shockingly bald - he's shaved his head again. I know you are reading this, Peter, sooner or later! He has the most beautiful hair and he shaves it all off. Sigh. John, on the other hand, also has beautiful, curly hair and it's down to his shoulders again. {grin} He's had it almost as long as mine before.

No snow today, although I was hoping. We had a few snowflakes while we were waiting outside for the taxi this afternoon, but then it all went away. Maybe next year we'll have a white Christmas.

It was a good day, even if I was missing my family. The family who is here adopting a little guy (hi!) now have him staying with them full-time while they finish up paperwork. It is such a long process, frustrating in the extreme. But it is the way it works here, or maybe doesn't work would be a better way to say it. Ukrainians live this way all the time, and for the average person it is no easier to deal with than it is for we Americans. The major difference is that they expect it and we just never seem to learn to expect it as the norm. But I digress. Their little Maxim is 4 1/2 - just 2 1/2 months older than Stirling. His hair is a bit darker than Stirlings', but in many ways they are very alike. I loved watching him tonight. It kind of broke my heart, but it kind of was a healing balm on my heart as well. As I watched Stirling on the webcam later (which is very choppy and not smooth video), I could imagine him moving around, playing and making noise much like Maxim. I'm really glad they were there today.

All for now.

A good day, all in all.