We’re doing Christmas by flexible scheduling this year, time-shifting.<\/p>\n
John and Megan and Al and Emma all got here on Monday, sequentially. I was at work finishing grading, and John texted to say they were in town and going to the mall for last minute shopping, and did I want to get picked up because it was like -4\u00ba outside. The mall is pretty far from my office, so I thought it’d be easier to take the bus, but UW-Madison seems to have turned off its mobile website – with the best bus times. I had to download the app, and it kept crashing. So in the end I waited for them to get me.\u00a0 I had thawed out a pan of beef enchiladas, thinking it’d be plenty for everyone for dinner. After Megan, John, Mark, Toni and I ate, there was only one left for Al who arrived for 2nd shift dinner.<\/p>\n
I took Megan & John to a friends and did a little grocery shopping.<\/p>\n
On Christmas eve day, I got up to make peanut butter brownies<\/a> and pizza dough, so we could have our traditional home made pizza and silly movie. Specifically, Love Actually<\/a> the last few years. I’ve decided that the best way to make pizza is to pre-bake the crust – recipe posted real soon now. We all ate bagels and bacon and egg and bacon bagel sandwiches for breakfast and Megan drove off for Iowa. I was wracking my brain trying to remember why I never got out for a walk yesterday – and it’s because Mark and Toni and I went to see movie 2 of the Hunger Games trilogy – Catching Fire<\/a> at 1:00. It’s a 2 1\/2 hour movie, and I wanted to get a few things at Sentry, after. So we weren’t back until after 4:00.<\/p>\n I made 4 pizza varieties: potato-sausage; pepperoni; goat cheese, roasted red pepper and olive; and pesto and oven-dried tomato. I made six crusts, thinking I’d freeze two, but I had enough cheese and sauce and meat for two pepperoni pies. Al & Emma came back and watched and ate pizza too – no pictures, every slice was eaten. Al told us about this blog<\/a> that pretty much destroys Love Actually, so we were all looking at it on our phones and watching the movie at the same time.<\/p>\n On Christmas day, we opened presents, again sort of tag team. Mark, me, John, Al, Emma & Toni were all here. Al & Emma were heading over to her parents for round 2 of opening presents there – and they’d done a few on the Eve. Ethan was coming later to open presents with Mark. Those of us left here ate brunch after presents. I made a ton of food, waffles, bacon and sausage, fried apples, and coffee cake (again, no pics). The plan was duck a l’orange and roasted vegetables for dinner, but while I was cooking brunch, I started to have wayward thoughts – do we really want to have another big meal in 4 hours? So we decided to move the duck dinner to tomorrow. Christmas dinner on boxing day. Why not? And we should have more eaters – I think Megan will be back, and Ethan Tonight we’ll see if we can use the Amazon prime membership that Mark gave me for Christmas to watch another movie – and eat cookies. I made the last cookie tray of the season for our movie snacks.<\/p>\nand Abby<\/del> will come.<\/p>\n