Give Us a Little Quiche

Heidi's brother makes the same Christmas request each year: six sweet potato pie kits from a local soul food place famous for it. His plan is to take the six gallons of frozen filling to Florida and enjoy it a little at a time. He's picky though, and no crust is necessary for him, so we always place the order hold the pie shells and then haul the 20 pounds of mashed sweet potatoes, butter, brown sugar, spices, and eggs, to Buffalo.

This year they got it wrong at the restaurant and so we ended up with the empty shells after all. No worries, though, this morning I made quiche for the first time in at least 10 years, and it was amazingly easy when you already have a quality crust!

Bon apetite!

Christmas Calculus

   1 driveway full of frozen slush
+ 1 snow pusher
+ 1 metal ice scraper
----------------------------------
    3 Christmas cookies

Silver Bells

City sidewalks

Snow banks lined the side of Elmwood Avenue in downtown Buffalo

busy sidewalks

this afternoon as we searched for a parking spot.

dressed in holiday style

Garland, funky trees, wreathes and reindeer festooned the hip little shop windows

in the air there's the feeling of Christmas.

and carols played on the radio.

Children laughing

We found a spot right across from the toy store

people passing

and headed into the throng

meeting smile after smile

of happy shoppers

and on every street corner you hear

and across the avenue

silver bells

past the tiny chimes ring-a-ling-ing

silver bells

to a gallery featuring the work of local artisans

It's Christmas time in the city.

Strings of street lights, even stoplights

Mid-winter dark cloaked the late afternoon as we headed home

Blinkin' bright red and green

through stop and go traffic

As the shoppers rush home with their treasures

with a trunk full of shopping bags.

Soon it will be Christmas Day.

Take a Road Trip and Call Me in the Morning

After so many busy, busy action-packed days you might think that the last thing I would want would be a 7 hour car ride...

BUT you would be wrong. Quality snacks, a good audio book, relatively congestion-free roads, and great company were practically a prescription for forced relaxation.

And now?

It's Christmas!

All I Want

We were eating lunch today when the subject of something came up that reminded me of something else that reminded me of my ukulele. So I grabbed that baby from behind my desk and I whipped out the music to Silver Bells. Soon one of my colleagues (who sings in a choir!) joined in for a little lunchtime holiday sing-along. "You guys!" I gushed when we were through, "you just made one of my ukulele dreams come true! A sing-along!"

"Well Merry Christmas!" they said.

Boo Hoo mBug

It seems like

EVERYBODY

else

is on

Christmas vacation

except

us!

Twenty-Five Dozen

Christmas cookies--

Boom!

Mic drop.