Christmas Day—the good kind of tired

A real privilege today to go with my Tomball Alters to Lisa’s parents’ home. John and Torhild Griesbach always make me feel so welcome on these Alter-off years. Today we were up at six, out the door at seven, and at the Griesbach home in Sugar Land by eight.  Lisa had baked two quiches—one cheese and sausage and one Lorraine. She popped cinnamon rolls into the oven, and her mom heated sausage. We ate at a lovingly set table, bright with a Christmas cloth and colorful square plates (I was impressed by the plates).

Kids 12 and 13 are too old to be excited about Christmas and stockings-not! These two grandkids were anxious to get to the business of the day—and Santa Claus rewarded them amply. They both got Apple watches—and so did I. Colin is working on setting mine up so it will monitor my heart rate and detect falls. For the latter, he said he would have to push me down twice to make sure it worked. Lisa giggled, and I protested. He actually did push Kegan down, so now that boy can say he literally has taken a fall for his grandmother.

 Jamie sent a table top herb/vegetable garden which operates on an app from the phone. Apparently you stick a pod in the soil, and the app monitors temperature and moisture. Tomorrow I will explore the directions more thoroughly, but it came with seed pods for mini tomatoes, cress, lettuce, and other interesting things. Last summer I had a thriving basil plant but couldn’t get down to the ground to harvest it. This will be great.

Christmas dinner was two meals—Norwegian hamburgers (a long story behind those, but it’s explained in Gourmet on a Hot Plate—how’s that for a marketing technique?)—and chicken cutlets, along with green beans, carrots, mashed potatoes, noodles, and rolls. Torhild is an old-fashioned, down-home cook who sets a bountiful table. For dessert, we had apple pie, courtesy of Lisa, and chocolate pie, made by Morgan. Everyone wanted a nap after dinner, but we had dogs back home that had been locked up all day, so everyone packed up the car and we headed back north. After we got home and got the dogs settled and fed, I did sneak a short nap.

Sophie and Grace, a big shepherd mix, got along fine. We carefully separated them this morning to avoid mischief, but clever Sophie figured out a way to get through the barrier and had the run of the house—no problems. She was ecstatic when we returned—dancing and jumping. Grace was more restrained in her enthusiasm. Thanks to Morgan and Colin who have been walking Sophie since there is no fenced yard.

Kegan just walked by with a gentle, “Merry Christmas, Juju” on his way to bed. I’ll follow him soon, tired, full, happy and feeling blessed by family who really takes such sweet care of me. I hope you all are equally happy and content tonight, my friends. As Colin said in the car tonight, only 365 days till Christmas.