Monday, November 30, 2015

Crazy busy holiday weekend recap

Happy Monday, all!

I hope you all had a great holiday weekend.

Ours was busy as all get out and while I enjoyed the time spent with people I love, I'm also glad that I won't be that busy again until crunch time at Christmas.  Thanksgiving Day, we were late because I had the assembly line for the sweet potatoes going and because I made so much, it took 10 minutes longer than it should have.  But they were so good, I didn't care...


My cousin, the one who says "if Anele makes it, you eat it!" ate these, looked me dead in the eye and said "I f**kig love you."  I guess you can't get better than that!  Bwaaahahaha!  We did have a lot left over though.  Actually there seemed to be a lot of everything left over.  The paper plates used are so small that you really only had room for a small spoonful of this or that and by the time you put the turkey/ham and a roll on there, the room was gone.  We all had to go vertical or go back for seconds.  My mom never said if she liked them or not (she's the one who usually does them) so I guess I'll wait until next year to see if I have requests for them and if not, I'll invite my cousin over and we'll gorge on them ourselves.  My pies went over well.  I did make a boo boo though.  I forgot to refrigerate my pumpkin pies and while I know some people say you can still eat them if they've just sat overnight, I'll just say there are some litigious people in the group and all they'd need is a reason.  So the Mr was kind enough to make a grocery run so I could redo them and they baked while we worked out.  No biggie thankfully since they're easy to make.

For those wondering about Grandma, she's about the same.  She had small outbursts here and there, one of them directed at me while I was talking to my mom.  It startled me because she kind of yelled for a second and my mom is like "we're used to it, she doesn't mean anything by it, just smile and nod."  Um, it's not my first rodeo, you don't need to constantly remind me every time she does that how I should react.  It's kind of the same way my grandpa used to feel the need to tell everyone her diagnosis when she was still well aware of what he was saying about her.  I don't know, it's just weird like I was never in on how she acted or something.  Doesn't everyone jump when someone yells their direction?

The look on my uncles's face when I brought out the 2nd apple crumb pie was priceless.  This is a man who doesn't get excited about much but seeing his jaw drop, eyes light up and a smile come across his face when he knew he was getting more pie later was my happy moment for the day.

So all in all it was good, I would say better than last year though I can't pinpoint why.  When a branch of the tree and the grandparents left, we broke out the ads and the dirty talk and probably stayed later than they hoped but it was fun.  Too bad we still had stuff to do.

While most of the house was clean, I was hosting an afternoon tea to send off my friend before she moves out of state this weekend.  I made as much ahead as I could but I still needed to stew my apples for mini apple tarts and set the table and then the Mr needed to clean up the kitchen.  But I managed to get everything done I needed to in time.


I'll do a post about our afternoon tea and some recipes probably after the holidays because I doubt with all of the regular entertaining y'all would want to try to cram this in on top of it!  HA!  But it was a lovely time even though she showed up 30 minutes early and threw off my whole time table.  (Don't do that to a Virgo)  She brought our Christmas gifts and I suggested we just have our Christmas so we did.  She liked what we got her and I'm glad she got the glasses I asked for so I can replace our wine glasses we never use.  We also got her some housewarming gifts including a local grocery store gift card that made her cry and she said I was the most thoughtful person she knew because I always think of things like that.  I love doing stuff like that for people.  It doesn't take much to go a little above and beyond and it's usually appreciated.  So we cried like asshats while the Mr laughed at us and took a blurry pic of us which makes me think he was crying too.  We talked and held hands and when it came time to pack her up I gave her a hug and held it together and as soon as I got in the house, I lost it.  I'm happy for her but it's hard knowing she'll be 16 hours away instead of three.

Saturday it was time to spend all day watching rivalry games and do our traditional appetizer spread.  People, the graze gene was so activated it's not funny.  I wish I could say we exhibited any kind of self control over the past four days but I'd be lying.  Then Sunday was refuel day for the grocery store and that meant grazing on leftovers to make room for "real" groceries.  (That was the justification.)

I was soooo friggin' exhausted, I could barely walk.  My back and ankles hurt and I felt like I could've fallen asleep in Target's frozen food section standing up.  It wasn't pretty.  I think a week full of worry then execution finally caught up to me.  Working out was not in the cards if I didn't get a little shut eye.  I took a 30 minute nap and felt much better (even though I'd say I only slept for about 10 minutes of the 30 with the other 20 being "rest.")  We did a circuit and I felt better about doing it instead of skipping.  I grabbed a shower while the Mr cut my veggies for the week.  We made our Sunday night hot cocoa and decided it was time to watch our first Christmas movie of the season, Scrooged(affiliate link) 

That about covers it!  I'm so glad the house is fully decorated and we can hopefully enjoy the next week or two without too much entertaining.  I don't think my neck and shoulders can take the stress right now!

How about you guys?  How was your holiday weekend?

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8 comments:

  1. It was a crazy busy holiday week/weekend but all worth it as it was really awesome! Thanks for all the hard work and amazing cooking!

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    1. It was...once it was all done. Man, I haven't gone on so little sleep in a long time! Glad to have an ebb with the flow!

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  2. Sounds like a great holiday weekend. This was probably the least stressful Thanksgiving I've had in 10 years. I cooked for my brother and sister in law and mother and it was very low key. Make my turkey your way and everyone loved it! Also made your bacon jam and everyone loved that.

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    1. I'm glad your holiday was low key! That's how it should be! So happy you got good reviews on the turkey and bacon date jam! It's good to be able to pass along some of my culinary love to other families with good results!

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  3. It sounds like you had a pretty nice, if bittersweet, holiday.

    It was pretty busy here too. I had the week off and after a trip to the Sand Dunes, catching up on school and housework, and meals with friends I need a vacation from my vacation. The boy so doesn't want to get up for school this morning (I didn't either for that matter) and it's cold and icy outside.

    I've got to get my tree up this week. I'm not feeling it, but it needs to be done and maybe I'll be more in the spirit once I'm looking at my decorated tree.

    I made an "easied up" version of your sweet potatoes to go with leftovers last night and they came out really good.

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    1. Isn't that always how it is? Needing a vacation from your vacation? We always try to make sure we have at least one "down day" when we get back and always tell people we're getting back a day later than we are. Real life can wait another day.

      Put that tree up and you'll be in the spirit in no time! :-)

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  4. Sounds like you had a truly wonderful time, despite being beyond tired by the end of the weekend. I had to laugh when you said the paper plates were so small for the food. We took care of that issue last year when we decided to by the Chinet "platters" -- works like a charm! Nice and sturdy with enough room for a bit of everything. For me, I'm glad the holiday is over with being that it was the first one without mom. Too much tension in the house and just depressing overall. He did the turkey in the deep fryer and it turned out excellent. I made all of my usual side dishes and everything tasted like sawdust to me. Even attempting to eat the leftovers was blah to me (except the turkey). Not sure why that was, or if it was just mental, but it just fell flat this year. But I was happy with how I cleaned as I went so by the time dinner was done, there was very little for me to wash and put away and that felt fabulous. Took the dogs on a few drives in the country and listened to Christmas music and they loved it (well, the drive anyway--ha!). That foot of snow we got is all gone now after all the rain we've had. Then yesterday afternoon as I was going up the back deck stairs with the dogs, I trips and fell and sprained my ankle -- which was already in bad shape because of over-compensating for my bad knee on that same leg. Who-wee, does this thing hurt! It's on the top and side of the inside ankle bone so any type of flexing hurts. And I'm supposed to go to the Y tomorrow for my swim classes-- super. Ibuprofen will be my friend today I think.

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  5. Sounds like it was an awesome holiday and I'm wishing I could try your sweet potatoes based on your cousin's reaction alone!! :-)

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