Day After Christmas Selfies

Katie, Todd and the kids went downtown today to spend some time with Todd's brother and their kids who were in town from California and staying at the Hilton Hotel where Todd's parents have their 16th floor apartment. Katie and Todd would be staying there for a few days too before coming back to our house on Sunday.

We hung out with the kids before they headed downtown in the afternoon and one of the things we did was take a bunch of selfies together. The kids love doing selfies with me and we make sure to do it each time we get together.

An Icy Walk on Christmas

Becky and I went for a walk this Christmas Day evening like we try to do most days but this was a little different because of the ice on sidewalks. The kids had gone downtown for Christmas dinner with Todd's family and we had some quiet time in the house before they were to return later this evening.

So we went for our walk. It's unbelievable how many people don't shovel their sidewalks or at least throw down some ice melt salt as the snow begins to melt. Most of the sidewalks around our home were cleared off but there were quite a few that had a layer of ice that made walking treacherous. Most of the time we walked off of the sidewalk and into the snow because it was easier and safer in the snow than on the ice sidewalk. It was a good thing we didn't wait until it got really dark. We had wanted to see some of the Christmas lights on our neighbor's homes.

It was also a little weird that on this day last year we went for a walk with the kids and I tripped over them which caused me to fall and dislocate my shoulder which I wrote about here.

Overall it hasn't been a bad winter so far and the snow in our neighborhood has not accumulated very much. A couple of inches here and there followed by some quick melting. Well, except for the past few days where it got very cold after a couple of inches of snow. However next week the temperatures are supposed to get into the 50's. 

Panettone for Breakfast

For breakfast on Christmas morning we had some delicious Panettone cake. We saw a pile of them on the table in the bakery area at Romeo & Juliet's last week when we were there for dinner. Becky stopped by this week and luckily there were still some left so she picked one up. We had planned to have it for dinner last night but it didn't happen with all the Christmas cookies in such demand so we had it for breakfast today and it was fantastic. I think this will be a new Christmas tradition.

So what is Panettone... it's a Northern Italian type of yeasted sweet bread and fruit cake that was originally from Milan and traditionally baked for Christmas and New Years. It is now popular around the world. It has raisins, citrus and almonds with a buttery textured bread.

I really like this bread a lot but it's been many years since I had some. It was real nice to have it again.

Of course this is not to be confused with the fruit cakes from back in the day. There were jokes about fruit cakes that would be given as gifts year after year... the same cake. Getting passed around. 

Christmas Morning 2024

Christmas morning this year was a lot of fun for the kids. There were certainly plenty of gifts for them under the tree.

The kids played with their toys all morning before getting ready to spend the late afternoon and evening with Todd's family.

Flying Dog's Family Drama - Holiday Survival Pack

Dave came by for the Christmas Eve dinner with a bunch of beers. He had a six packs of Athletic NAs plus a really silly collection of beers from Flying Dog Brewery in Utica NY which they call the Family Drama Holiday Survival Pack.

Here they are:

• Passive Aggressive Pils
• Awkward Silence Black Lager
• Why Are They Here? Imperial Red Ale
• Tension Tamer Hazy IPA

So I'm going to have some fun trying these out and according to the printed message on the box...  "the beer you are about to drink may, in fact, change your life. No longer will securing that same old parking space at the office give you a false sense of accomplishment. Coloring outside of the lines will start to feel like the only option. Always wear clean underwear? Hell, you may not even wear underwear anymore."

Christmas Eve Dinner 2024

Becky and I hosted dinner for Christmas Eve again this year. It has been a tradition for a long time now. Katie, Todd and the three kids were here and we were fortunate that they recovered enough from their illnesses although Clara was still coughing a lot. This year we had Dave and Donna and Mary. Dick and Iris came again. Val came and brought Nina with her. It was sad for Val as this was her first Christmas without Bobby. He was with us last year but did not look very well and really didn't have long to live.

Val and Nina had a good time and it was very nice to see Nina here. There was lots of sitting around the front room talking.

Becky made her wonderful braciole dinner and we all enjoyed it very much.

The kids sat in the front room at the kid's table with Todd who still wasn't feeling very well. 

We had lots of great Christmas cookies for desert made by Becky, Donna and Katie. Looks like there's gonna be a lot of leftover cookies even after we bring a bunch over to Dick and Iris's for Violet's birthday later this week.

Christmas Visit This Year

Katie and Todd and the kids arrived today for their annual Christmas Visit. It was a day later than planned because of sickness. Henry was sick earlier in the week and was diagnosed with an ear infection, walking pneumonia and Covid. He got the meds and cleared it all up. Meanwhile Todd got sick but was negative with Covid. So they waited an extra day for Todd to feel better and then they left on Sunday afternoon. They drove to Syracuse and then spent the night in a motel.

Then Clara got sick too. When they got to Buffalo Katie took Clara to a nearby urgent care facility because of her cough and fever, 104. She got her meds. They tried to give her a Covid test but she resisted and got a bloody nose instead. Katie picked up a test kit and later Clara tested negative for Covid.

Of course when they arrived today they immediately sat on the floor and played together with the castle as usual.

Becky's Braciole 2024

Becky made her usual recipe of braciole again this year. She pre-ordered the meat from Dash's Market and picked it up today. She made the braciole a day early and then had it all ready in the refrigerator to come out tomorrow to cook for dinner.

She's putting together four bracioles this year. That means we will have some leftovers.

She also made enough for Katie to bring some back home with her.

I also helped this time... I held my finger down on the string when she tied the knots on the bracioles. 

Ministry of Truth - MAGA Dystopia Book

Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past by Steve Benen, 2024. 

A fascinating book about post-truth America full of rampant mis-information and the rewriting of recent history. Obviously no morality or integrity in the efforts of MAGA to gain power.

Read this throughout the month of December. The kids were at our house for the holidays but I was able to finish this up just before they arrived.

The Evening Mist FV Mixes

Probably about four years ago during the pandemic I put together a couple of 8 hour mega mixes using classical, soundtracks, new age and some jazz together in a smooth flowing easy sounding collection of music. I called them Evening mixes. 

Just recently I started reworking those mixes into a new Final Version series of hour and a half mixes titled Evening Mist FV. The mega mixes are fine under some circumstances but I like having the smaller mixes. An hour and a half has seemed to be the ideal compromise.

So during the recent holidays when I had some time to relax with my music collection I started reworking the Evening Verses and Evening Vessels into the hour and a half Evening Mist FV series. I started off using songs from the two earlier mega mixes but I've also been collecting many more pieces of music from across my collection including new age, ambient, soft rock, classical and soundtracks.

I will be posting these new FV mixes here after the holidays. I'm sure I will have about ten of them over the next couple of weeks. I find it very relaxing and focuses my attention.