Our family Christmas celebration was a lot of fun. We even managed to squeeze in singing of several songs. We started out with some Christmas Carols but quickly moved on to our favorites, The House of the Rising Sun and If I Were a Rich Man, from Fiddler on the Roof.
For many years we held a New Year's Eve party with family and friends. There was a bonfire and a sled run with lanterns to light the run in the darkness.
When it was close to midnight, we all came inside to sing songs and the traditional song to sing at the stroke of midnight was, The House of the Rising Sun.
We sang many tunes, but one favorite, especially for the men, was If I Were A Rich Man. The vocals were important but also the Tevya dance was required when singing the song.
Oh mother, tell your children, not to do what I have done...
...spend your life in sin and misery, in the House of the Rising Sun.
Well, I've got one foot on the platform, the other foot on the train...
There is a House in New Orleans, they call the Rising Sun...
If I were a Rich Man, Ya ba dibba dibba dibba dibba dibba dibba dum
All day long, I'd biddy biddy bum
If I were a wealthy man
I'd build a big, tall house with rooms by the dozen Right in the middle of the town A fine tin roof with real wooden floors below There would be one long staircase just going up And one even longer coming down And one more leading nowhere, just for show
The most important men in town would come to fawn on me!
They would ask me to advise them like a Solomon the Wise
"If you please, Reb Tevye..."
"Pardon me, Reb Tevye..."
Posing problems that would cross a rabbi's eyes!
Boi! Boi! Boi! Boi! Boi! Boi! (These need to be sung perfectly)
And it won't make one bit of difference if I answer right or wrong
When you're rich, they think you really know! (Isn't that the truth?)
If I were a rich man
Ya ba dibba dibba dibba dibba dibba dibba dum
All day long, I'd biddy biddy bum
If I were a wealthy man
I wouldn't have to work hard
Ya ba dibba dibba dibba dibba dibba dibba dum
Lord, who made the lion and the lamb
You decreed I should be what I am
Would it spoil some vast eternal plan
If I were a wealthy man?
It was fun and it has been several years since we have sung any songs together. We were amazed that we could still do it.
Yesterday Lady and I headed into Sandpoint to go the Pooch Parlor to get her nails trimmed. It was her first visit to the groomer and a very successful one. It was a bit scary for Lady as there were at five other dogs there, some on the grooming tables and a couple just roaming around. They took our picture when we were done.
It's been many years since I've ventured to town the day before Christmas Eve. Usually, I have done all my shopping beforehand, so I have to say I was shocked by the number of crazy people out shopping at the last minute. Of course, I was not crazy.
The temperature was 2 degrees and the wind was blowing and it was snowing. The parking lot at Yoke's was full and I had to wait for a spot to park. It was snowing so hard that the snow was accumulating on the parked cars very quickly. Fortunately, I had a broom in the back of my car and it makes it pretty easy to get the snow off.
We picked up our groceries and headed home. As we left Sandpoint we ended up driving behind one of those panicked winter drivers who was only driving 45 mph. I was the first one behind the panicked driver, but the roads were snow packed and there was too much traffic to pass. There were several cars behind me. I kept wishing that the terrified driver was going to turn left - at Colburn-Culver, at Pack River, at well, anywhere soon. Nope.
As we approached Trestle Creek, driving around and down the curves, one of the cars from way back decided to pass all of us. If you're familiar with the area, you know that it's a "no passing area" all the way through there. I muttered to myself, "where is a cop when you need one?". As I looked in my rearview mirror, I saw flashing emergency lights. I'm thinking, "oh, oh, ambulance", and I pulled over and waited.
Whoa! It was a Bonner County Sheriff's car and he quickly drove by us and pulled over the jerk who'd just passed 4 cars in a row. Ha!
Hallelujah!
Alright!
Small miracles do happen! As you can tell, it doesn't take much to make me happy. Just a sliver of justice will do.
Totally made my day.
I almost forgot to post the photo of my baking for today. Before we left for Sandpoint, I baked Pumpkin Spice Scones.
I'm posting some old photos today - this is my rose bush with rose hips hanging on it. The grouse have already eaten all of the rose hips this year. They like the cover of the grape arbor which is close to the bush.
This is one of my favorite photos from 2014. Back then I was taking photos with a Canon Powershot.
We were definitely having a snowy winter that year although this photo was taken in January. As I am writing this it is snowing again. No!
These are photos from 6:00 a.m. this morning. Snowing lightly. Temperature is 9 degrees.
Lady says, "oh-oh -
there might be something out there"!
The good news is that I received my first seed catalog in the mail yesterday. Come on spring!
We have a warm-up today as it was -2 when Lady and I went outside this morning. It was snowing lightly and there's a bit of wind. It's hard to tell the difference between -12.8 and -2.
My cousin Tena, in Burwell, NE, reports that their temperature didn't get above zero yesterday. The freeze is everywhere.
What else is there to do in weather as cold as this other than to bake Christmas cookies. On my "to bake" list were Gingersnaps, Almond Crescents and make up the dough for my sugar cookies.
I wrapped up a few gifts in-between baking cycles and at one point I decided to sit down at the piano to play a few Christmas tunes. My acoustic piano is in the living room and my digital pianos are in the basement. I rarely play the one upstairs so Miss Lady hadn't heard me play it.
Let's just say she wasn't thrilled with the new sound. At first there was a lot of barking and then she disappeared. I played a half a dozen songs and then went looking for her. She was hiding in the bathroom behind the door. Maybe she was telling me that I need to practice some more?
It could also be that the piano is out of tune. Border Collies have very sensitive hearing and as working dogs they rely on their hearing to do their job. I may need to get my piano tuned not only for my hearing, but for Miss Lady.
Today I am taking Lady to the groomers for the first time. She is going to get her paws trimmed and nails clipped. It should be an interesting day. Afterwards we are going to pick up the last of the groceries needed for our Christmas celebration.
Out morning routine is to get up around 6:00 a.m., get dressed in very warm clothes and then go outside. Then Lady and I come back in and I make breakfast. Lady always gets a few bites of ham (her favorite) while I am cooking breakfast. Then she has to eat her puppy food, followed by a nap.
Miss Lady is a foodie. She really likes ham, and bacon could also work for her. It's very helpful with training because she will do almost anything for her favorite treats.
She is very polite about it and will patiently sit or lie down in the kitchen, waiting for me to give her a treat. Sometimes I take too long and I get one bark, to remind me that she is waiting. I think it's called "demand barking".
Well, yes, we're spoiling her.
Today I'm posting Jon's favorite Christmas song and one that he loves to sing, Christmas in Killarney.
at 6:00 a.m. it sure was. Lady and I were out there, before the sun was up. The stars were twinkling through the treetops when I looked up at the sky. It was eerily quiet except for the loud snapping sounds every once in awhile. Our trees in the woods are rebelling. They don't like the sub-zero cold temperatures anymore than we do. Thus, the snap, crackle and pop sounds.
Our mini-split heater is working overtime and we have also cranked up the baseboard heaters. It's just too cold without them. All of the windows are freezing up. I've placed towels and/or cloth placemats on the sills to soak up any moisture.
My attempt at Kolache was a failure. They looked good, but did not taste like my Grandma Ella's. My cousin, Judy Simpson, who lives in Burwell, my home town, says she has a family recipe for them and she is going to share it with me. I will give it another try. It is tricky baking yeast breads with gluten-free flour. The absence of gluten is hard to replicate, but I'm going to try.
Yesterday was a productive day though. I made GF Chex mix and mixed up my dough for gingersnaps. Today I plan to mix my dough for Chocolate Mint Cookies. They taste similar to Girl Scout Chocolate Mint Cookies. I use Bob's Red Mill 1-1 flour whenever I bake cookies or cake. Most recipes usually turn out well.
Yesterday afternoon as I was baking I watched Volodmyr Zelenskyy give his speech to congress. His authenticity was there for all the world to see. The Ukrainian people are lucky to have such a courageous and honorable leader. Not only that, the entire world is fortunate to have him as a leader, fighting for democracy.
It breaks my heart to think of all the people in Ukraine without electricity, water or heat during the winter. All because one man wants to take their country away and he doesn't care how many lives are destroyed to do it, both in Ukraine and in Russia.
When will we ever learn.
Later in the evening I watched the tribute to Paul Simon. The music was wonderful and his songs were performed by so many talented artists. The program ended with Paul Simon singing several of his songs.
This is our snow dog. Lady loves the snow. We have more than two feet on the ground and she gets buried in it. It's a good thing, since she gets to burn off a lot of energy running around in it.
I cleaned ten inches of fresh snow off of my car yesterday. It stopped snowing here around 2:00 p.m. and I hadn't planned to run the snowblower until Thursday, but changed my mind. There was just too much snow to leave it.
I baked a Date Pudding Cake while I was running the snowblower and just came inside every so often to check on it. I haven't made one of these for awhile, but it was always one of my favorites. The recipe is from my Grandma Phillipps.
My grandma was born in England, the youngest of 13 children. She and an older sister immigrated to Canada when my grandma was very young and then moved to Nebraska. During WWII they lost contact with the family back in England and it was many years before they finally made contact again with one of her sisters.
Date Pudding Cake
Preheat oven to 350
1 pound of chopped dates
(I chopped mine in my food processor and add a little bit of the flour to keep them from sticking together)
2 cups of sugar`
2 t. baking soda
1/2 a cup of butter, sliced into pieces
2 cups of boiling water
Place the first four ingredients in a bowl and pour boiling water over, stir and let it stand until cooled.
Once it has cooled a bit, add 2 slightly beaten eggs (temper eggs before adding to mixture)
In another large bowl mix together 3 cups of flour, 2 t. baking powder and 1 cup of chopped walnuts
Add the date mixture to the flour mixture and mix well, pour into non-stick bundt pan, (I add some Pam to keep from sticking)
Bake for 50 minutes or until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean
and top of cake is firm to the touch.
Cool completely, then remove from pan.
Dust with powdered sugar or a glaze and serve with whipped cream or a cool whip type topping
Mine is wrapped and in the freezer until I'm ready to decorate and serve next week.
I have several dessert recipes that my grandma used to make, Sour Cream Raisin Pie and Kolache. Kolache are pastries made with a yeast dough and filled with fruit. Grandma's were usually filled with a prune filling. Geez. After typing this, I am now wanting bake Kolache.
It was dark by the time I finished with the snowblower. Retired Mountain Man always gases up the machine and covers it so we're ready for the next round.
Our neighbor, Adam Mitton, came to plow out the driveway after he got home from work. There sure was a lot of snow out there and we are happy to have the driveway cleared. The UPS driver will be happy too.
After I came back inside, another project was on the list. I mentioned in an earlier blog post, we needed to replace our refrigerator. Well, we had to cancel the delivery since there was no way it could be delivered here and we are now waiting until spring to re-order.
Our problem is the freezer compartment drain keeps plugging up with ice and when it does, water goes into the bottom of the frig and gets into the crispers, etc. The only way to temporarily fix it is to take part of the freezer apart and thaw the ice with a hair dryer.until the drain unplugs. It looks like we will be doing that several times before spring. The first time it happened a couple of years ago, I "googled" the problem and found a YouTube video showing how to fix it. Amazing.
Our Wednesday night low is looking really cold but not as bad as the forecast for sons, JP and David. The low for both Kalispell and Missoula is -30. Everyone is hoping that nothing breaks and the power stays on. We are all doing everything we can to be ready for the cold blast.
Retired Mountain Man gets some credit here because he taught both of them how to take care of things, - electrical, plumbing, equipment and vehicles. They are both very good at it. Of course nowadays everything is more complicated to maintain and/or repair, but there is always Google to consult, which we didn't have when they were growing up.
The good news is that we will have turned the corner towards spring around 1:30 p.m. - Winter Solstice. The days now start getting longer. It will be hard to forget this one if our low tonight is as bad as they predict. The forecast now is for -18 below zero.
Stay warm, bake some cookies, drink some hot cocoa and listen to Christmas music.
I've had this CD for many years and it's one of my Christmas favorites. I bought it at Coldwater Creek when the store was on the bridge in Sandpoint. Enjoy.
I was up way too early this morning, around 5:00 a.m. I took Lady outside to do her business and it was snowing. It looks like we received another couple of inches last night, but there's more to come.
My plan for today was to bake cookies, but now it's looking more like another shovel and snow blower day, especially since the cold temps predicted for tomorrow are making me want to stay indoors.
Yes, I'm still working on the tree. I've added a few icicles.
I'm also still behind on getting gifts wrapped and in the mail. Unfortunately, some of them are going to be late this year.
As you can see in this photo my dining table is a bit of a mess.
I'm beginning to think that Santa might be bringing me a lump of coal this year. Who ordered all this snow and the freezing temperatures? I never thought I'd be longing to spend winter somewhere warmer, but I'm starting to dream about it.
Our Christmas with our family will be next week when I hope it has warmed back up for a few days. We are looking forward to seeing all of our kidlets again.
Miss Lady has adjusted to the tree thing being in the house. She's only thrown her toys into it a couple of times and for the most part, she ignores it. She did freak out at one point when she saw the blinking lights at the top of the tree. She was pretty sure it was alive and started barking at it.
It's definitely a day for hot cocoa and cookies. It looks like Christmas 2022 will be another one for the record!
I made the trip to Sandpoint yesterday and found more lights. I'm still working on the tree. It used to be that the tree decorating took only one day, but now it seems to take several. It really doesn't matter as there's plenty of time to get it done.
We have only a little bit of snow shoveling to do and a couple of places where I still need to run my snow blower. I plan to get it done today before it gets any colder out there. Old Man Winter has it in for us this year.
I read a quote on Facebook and I tried to find it again, but could not. It goes something like this, "As we approach the end of 2022 and begin 2023, let's take it slowly. Everyone be on your best behavior, be cautious, be quiet, and whatever you do,don't touch anything!"
I really do want to finish with the tree as I have some plans for baking Christmas Cookies. It seems like the right project when the low temperature is going to be 1 degree. Ugh!
We decided to make getting the Christmas tree this year as easy as possible. There's just too much snow on the ground to get very picky about the tree. We just need a tree.
The decision was to find one not too far from the driveway so that we could haul it in the car to the house.
Once the tree is cut down the steps are as follows:
Haul the tree from the back of the car to the front deck.
Measure and cut to correct length
Trim any dead branches
Add the tree stand
Oops!
This step was not part of the plan. At least it was a soft landing.
I helped him get up since he was kind of floundering on top of the snow berm. We managed to get the tree in the back of the car and back to the house.
We have a tarp to place on top of the carpet in the living room so that the snow that's frozen on the tree branches can thaw out.
Our next problem was finding out that we did not have enough of the colored lights for the tree. Several of the strands were no longer working, so this was as far as we got with the decorations. There will be a trip to the store tomorrow to buy more lights.
There's no rush getting it decorated so tomorrow will be fine. Miss Lady was really curious about having a tree in the house, but after several "no's", she has adjusted to the thing.
Later, Jon told me he had a Christmas gift for me, which would be extremely unusual since it's not even close to Christmas Day yet. He said, "I'm going to give it to you right now. Follow me."
Here it is! He sorted his socks and threw away all of the old ones. An empty drawer, to fill up, just for me.
Merry Christmas!
(I think it's the first time in our more than fifty year marriage that he has ever sorted through his socks and thrown some away.). There's a first time for everything, even after fifty years.
I almost forgot to add this photo. It was getting too dark for a decent shot, but here it is anyway. Two bull elk crossing the pasture and I got to my camera in time for one photo.
