rrs: life in stumptown

This has been an oddly cool Holiday season for us. This is the first time in fifteen years as a family, that we have spent the holidays virtually alone. As in, no extended family. Both the mister and I have a huge extended family and its not uncommon for us to be among thirty-odd guests during holiday dinners. 

With the departure of my sister back to California, that leaves just us up here. The rest of our families are scattered across Northern and Southern California, Nevada, the East Coast, Honduras and across the ocean in Fiji, Hawaii, New Zealand and Australia. So, when I say alone, the six of us plus our furry kids really means “alone.”

We spent the Thanksgiving holiday “back home” in San Francisco and the East Bay with the misters family. 

As soon as we came back home to Portland, we didn’t waste any time getting into the Holiday spirit. We chopped down a few trees to decorate…

…Only, the mini had a few other ideas about decorating- and since then we’ve had a tree 3/4 bare. Not to worry. We had two other trees out of reach that we stashed the presents under. 

Moving along to things the mini couldn’t wreck, we decided that holiday baking would be something fun to do. Only, the mister had his wisdom teeth out a couple weeks ago and he’s still suffering. Through two rounds of baking over the last two weeks, and one last-ditch baking effort during Christmas afternoon, he really hasn’t enjoyed much of the tasty treats.

We started off making a batch of Russian tea cakes, peppermint bark with both Ghiradelli white and milk chocolates, and candy cane cookies. For round two we did another tray of peppermint bark and a batch of lemon-vanilla meringues and peppermint meringues. Finally, sick of peppermint… Christmas afternoon we made some wonderful sugar cookies. I have to admit, it was really fun to make such a basic cookie and then paint on a glaze like frosting and sprinkles. They were delicious!

And the mister, being the awesome guy he is… made an amazing Apricot glazed ham for Christmas dinner. Seeing as it was “just us” and the mister wouldn’t be able to eat much, I figured I’d only make from scratch the few things that I cared to enjoy. Not like the boys would notice the difference anyway.

So, I settled on splurging on stuffing. I started out with a Marsee bakery loaf of sourdough and diced it into cubes. I tossed the cubes in a drizzle of olive oil and Herbs de Provence and then baked them until they were crisp and slightly browned. I let them sit out over night —even with crouton capers loose in my house (son #2)! Christmas afternoon, when the ham was just about done, I sautéed two shallots, about eight cloves of garlic and sliced celery. I tossed in the croutons and doused with broth until it was nice and mushy. The mister definitely enjoyed. 

The skimp items were yams (I had just made these from scratch for Thanksgiving) and the cranberry (oddly, the boys like the jiggly crap that comes from the can).  The green beans I made in a skillet atop the BBQ when the mister was done with our pig ham. But those were not touched by anyone but myself. No surprises there. I like to avoid tears on Christmas, so I didn’t say anything about the avoidance of the greens and let the kids eat cookies.  Just because, it was our “first” Christmas as a family. And, because I am a bad mom :)

I hope you all celebrated (or not) with loved ones and friends. I hope you enjoyed each others company and cheered for the small and often overlooked enjoyments in life. Here’s to 2012, friends!