Christmas 2014

This Christmas was a little different than I've had in recent years, because it involved more family than usual.  With my family spread across the country in practically every time zone, it isn't easy to get together.  Despite the long trip, my parents and Grandma Bonnie came to visit me and my brother's family, as well as my sister's family in New Jersey later on.

The traveling trio arrived in Baltimore at around 9:30 in the morning on Sunday after traveling for nearly twelve hours.  Due to the timing of their trip, they arrived with a little bit of time before my ward started, so we planned on them attending Church with me.  I knew they would be hungry so I arranged with the Simciks to be able to use their kitchen to cook my family breakfast - my apartment is on the third floor and that's not easy to get to when walking with a cane, so I was very happy to have a place where I could still give my family a warm welcome.  I decided to take a page out of my time at IHOP and I cooked spinach and grilled onion omelets with bacon.  Everyone that ate was happy for the energy so they could sit through Church without falling asleep.  At Church, I sang two songs with the Ward Choir and taught my final Sunday School lesson before the visitors decided that they needed to get on the road and head south to Ian's if they were going to be alert enough.  I wished them "so long" until we'd see each later in the week.

On Christmas Eve, I joined my family at Ian's.  I was a bit overly ambitious with my baking that morning, but since I didn't have any physical presents for everyone, I wanted to make sure everyone had something to enjoy.  Before leaving my apartment, I made brownies, pfeffernusse cookies, and a double-sweet pumpkin pie to take with me.  Once at Ian's, I started making dinner, which was a roasted chicken with steamed quinoa, steamed carrots and apples, and a spinach salad (made by my mom).  Due to my overly ambition from earlier in the day, dinner was later than it should have been, but everyone agreed that it was tasty.

On Christmas day, we started the day with presents, mostly for Clara and Henry.  After presents were opened (to many screams of "This is just what I wanted!"), I started working on breakfast.  I hadn't planned on breakfast this day like I had for the previous Sunday, but I saw that Ian had some frozen blueberries and pancake mix, so of course I thought of blueberry pancakes - I made a quick compote and then just dropped frozen blueberries into the pancakes after putting the batter on the hot griddle.  Along with the scrambled eggs that Ian whipped up, it was a full breakfast.  Later that day, I put on a pork roast.  Not only was this meal ready on time, but it was really tasty, too.  It was served with steamed broccoli and buttered dinner rolls.

I know that I mostly wrote about food this post, but that's what I gave my family this year.  I do have a great job right now, but I only just started and it's difficult for me to give presents right now.  One thing that I can do, however, is provide service in the form of cooking and baking.  And my gifts went over very well with everyone - Ian even said that the two dinners that I cooked were some of the most complete meals he had had in a long time.  I was happy to provide some gifts that were not just enjoyable, but nutritious as well.

I hope everyone had a Happy Christmas!