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Saturday, December 25, 2004
the best-laid plans
You know how sometimes you say, "This is so not my day..."? Well, it would seem logically to indicate that there must be such a thing as a day that is one's day, or it wouldn't be worth noting when it wasn't, right? Well, finally it came. Today was my day. It really was. And how fitting that this should happen on my birthday, no?
It started off with presents this morning. Just as we were about to start opening things, my mom called to tell us that she and my dad couldn't be here for Christmas dinner because she had some sort of stomach bug. (As an aside, I am offering up a huge apostrophic apology to my mom, for the fact that My Day hinged on her feeling so miserable. I'm sorry, Mom. But if you HAD to feel miserable, at least some good came of it, right?). So we decided to put off Christmas dinner until tomorrow, to give Mom a chance to feel better, which only involved calling two households, and everyone seemed agreeable to it. So I proceeded to have, for the first time, a birthday that actually felt like a birthday. I have never had the day of my birthday itself be a day when there was the luxury of just doing what I wanted, just because the nature of the day involves a big family dinner and a lot of preparation and stuff. With that gone from the day, we just hung around home doing what we (I) wanted to do. We played a game; we watched a few movies; we went for a walk. It was perfect; if I could have been given a day to spend in any way I chose, it's what I would have chosen. And we still have the fun of the family-and-friends gathering tomorrow afternoon. I'm just (again) sorry that it was my mom's misery that brought it all about. I DO REALLY LOVE MY MOM. I promise.
It's just as well that we didn't try to cook that turkey today anyway, since it is too big for the roaster oven, and I would have been unable to buy a roasting bag without traveling 45 miles to the city, so we'd have had to just make do with the ham by itself, and then the side dishes. (yes, as a matter of fact, a 25-lb turkey and a 13-lb ham for 13 people does make for an enormous quantity of leftovers; why do you ask? There were going to be 19 people, not 21 as we were just confused about the in-laws coming, but our friends' family of 6 is ill.) Tomorrow I'll get a roasting bag on the way to church, and the turkey will be done to a turn by 3:00. YUM.
And here's a C-ism for today, before I sign off with pictures.
We got C a video for Christmas. It had one of those flyers in the packaging, advertising other movies you can buy from the distributor or studio or whatever. C was looking at the flyer, reading the names of the movies, and she laughed out loud and said, "This one's called 'Tomb Sewer'!" We went, whaaat? until T figured out, just before she brought me the flyer to show me, that she meant "Tom Sawyer".
C's hand is really stronger than you might think, when she is using it to cover your mouth to keep you from laughing out loud at her cute little 5-year-old reading mistakes. I just thought I should warn you. Not that I would know from experience or anything...
C with her new dress held up over her nightgown
actually wearing the dress. Whenever I see this dress, until I die, I will be nearly overcome with the desire to speak with a French accent, because I sewed it while listening to A Tale of Two Cities on CD.
LT in his bathrobe. (My back is cramping up just looking at these pictures.) I had some of the space-themed flannel left over from the pajamas I made him last spring, so I used it as accent material on the robe.
