random truths – Day 1,012 (Saturday) – Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve Saturday was very different than a regular Saturday. After the regular coffee, there was cheese cubing and meat slicing for the cheese plate. There was macaroni cooking and cheese chopping and sauce preparing for the baked macaroni and cheese. The kielbasa was sliced and par-boiled for the kielbasa and brown sugar sauce. Cookies were plated. Chocolate coins and dipped pretzels were plated. Bowls were designated for crackers and chips. 

Chicken broth was set on the stove to simmer with mushrooms, onion, and broccoli. To that, the kielbasa water was added, followed by the macaroni water and some barley. It was set to simmer a couple hours and timed to be ready when the family arrived. Bowls were set out for the soup.

To accommodate the food and create room for the houseguests, the dining table was moved from the center of the room over against the sliders. Tackling this project as a crew of one means it takes a lot longer and screws up the area rug while walking the table over a few inches at a time and rotating it. It turns out the sliders are very drafty.

Once positioned, the table was covered in the Christmas tablecloth of green leaves and red poinsettias, followed by a hot pad for the kielbasa and the stand for the baking dish with the mac and cheese.

When Mom, my sister, nieces, and a niece’s boyfriend arrived, they came bearing more food. The finger sandwiches with three fillings (ham and pickle, egg salad, and seafood salad) were planned, but there was surprise shrimp cocktail, cookies baked by my niece in Vegas, and a chocolate cream pie. The table was loaded with enough food for an army.

While checking in the cabinet for something, a small box of tea fell out of the cabinet for the 10,000^th time in about three days. I kind of lost it when it bounced off my head and I slammed it on the kitchen table. The kitchen always feels too crowded and too full. Finding anything in the cabinet is a major daily archeology excavation and avalanche hazard. And I freaked out Mom and my sister over a stupid box of tea.

We ate. We exchanged gifts. We laughed about how we neatly refold tissue and gift wrap and gift bags for future use, and the vintage shopping bag that had been decorated with wrapping paper cutouts decades ago and was used again this year, and is becoming a bit more fragile. A music channel on the TV played “Songs of the Season” until the last couple minutes of the Patriots game when we switched over to that.

As the time crept towards getting dark, we put everything away so they could head back to their homes before it got too dark. We forgot to have soup, which was okay because there was so much other food. We forgot to take pictures, which is much less okay, because we keep forgetting to do that a lot lately.

The day started with several hours of prep work and ended with a couple more hours of hand washing dishes and putting them away, running the dishwasher, and washing the tablecloth. The refrigerator and the freezer are impossibly jammed. The cabinets are jammed. It is a clear case of excess. Tis the season.