Thursday, December 31st - Happy New Year and Good Riddance 2020!

 So Christmas is over for yet another year. For most it was not the same celebration but hopefully you enjoyed it. If nothing else, it will be a memorable one, though not necessarily for the best reasons.

Ours was quiet. Patti and Greg and the kids came over for dinner. We were allowed as they advised if you live alone you could gather with one family. Good thing I don't have more than one child. It must have been tough for some families to decide who's house does Grandma go to? But in the end it's really a small price to pay if it helps beat this thing.

The turducken was quite the experience. I'd never completely deboned a bird before but now I feel quite confident doing it. First it was the chicken, which had to be completely deboned. Then the duck and finally the turkey. The turkey didn't have to be completely deboned. You left the leg bones (but not the thigh bones) and you also left the wings intact. Thank goodness for YouTube videos! Because ducks have such a large amount of fat under the skin, one video suggested searing the skin before assembly. Makes sense, as it might be really greasy with all that duck fat running through everything. The bonus is a container of duck fat in the fridge. That stuff is like gold for roasting potatoes. 

I deboned everything on Christmas eve and then wrapped everything tightly and put back into the fridge till Christmas morning.

First they were stacked on top of each other, with a layer of sausage stuffing in between each.

Next step was to stitch up the back. All birds had been opened down the back and the bones removed. 

After stacking, the sides were pulled together and the sewing began. I used a needle and some really strong thread. I felt a little like Meredith Grey inserting all those stitches into the layers of skin!

 

Once it was all sewn together and turned over, it looked just like any other turkey. I roasted it in a roasting bag and it came out perfect. I did forget to take a picture of it when it was done but it pretty much looked like any other roast turkey. The easy part was the carving. You just cut down through the middle as there were NO BONES! Easy, peasy. 

Am I glad I did it? Absolutely,  It was a real learning experience and something I never thought I'd be able to pull off. Would I do it again? Not likely. Been there, done that. For the most part it was tasty, although we did find the leg parts of the duck tough and chewy. Not that I should have been surprised by that. In future I will continue to cook duck my usual way - pan sear the breasts and confit the legs. 

I was glad that I still had time to completely cook it on Christmas day. I had gone over to Guelph on the 24th and stayed overnight. Then when all the gifts were open I went home to prepare dinner. 

South of Guelph there is a subdivision with lots of big, beautiful houses and they really go all out with the decorations. It was snowing when we headed out on Christmas Eve to look at the lights and that just added to the magic. Click on the link to see a short video I took as we drove by. Just ignore the conversation as we pretty much forgot we were taping as we drove!

https://photos.app.goo.gl/AzCRMZAhEfytEqqd8

Once the festivities were over on Christmas morning, it was time for me to head home. I had cleared the snow off my car the night before but you wouldn't have known it in the morning. Good thing Santa brought Greg a new snow blower for Christmas!

I spent my day preparing dinner. I had set the table the day before so I had the whole day to putter in the kitchen. 

The family arrived around 5:00 and we had a lovely meal together. The kids really enjoyed the newest residents at my house. I picked them up on the 23rd and brought them home.

This is Cabernet...

... and this is Merlot!

They're lop eared lion head bunnies. Apparently they are 18 weeks old and sisters. They were bought for two kids who are 5 and 6 years old and who apparently quickly lost interest and I guess mom was tired of taking care of them.  So now they live at my house. I'm sure I can find someone to look after them for me when I travel (whenever that might be!)

James brought a back pack with him on Christmas day and advised he was planning to stay over. News to me, but no problem - really happy to have him. I have the day bed up in the attic. It's a bit untidy up there at the moment. In fact, it's become a bit of a dumping ground and high on my list for the coming lockdown days. But he said he didn't mind. In fact he ended up staying for two night before I drove him home. Not much to do and he didn't bring his boots or outdoor clothing with him so we pretty much stayed inside. We watched a number of old jeopardy episodes to see how many correct answers we could each come up with!  He has to isolate for 14 days before he goes back to Borden so it was great to have some time together while I could. 

Tonight being New Years Eve, will be pretty quiet. Fortunately one of our admin friends has organized a Zoom party. So far 11 people have responded that they are participating. There are 20 on the guest list so hopefully more can join us! 

Have a great new years eve everyone and someday we will tell our great grandchildren about the new years eve that wasn't !

Wednesday, December 23rd - a christmas like no other

Well, it certainly has been a challenging year for absolutely everyone. Unfortunately we still have some hurdles to overcome. Starting at midnight on Christmas night, we are going back into a province wide lockdown - again. That means our store will be closed until near the end of January. Not to worry, I can find lots of things to do with my spare time.

Because a single person is allowed to join one family for the day, the family will still be coming here. I'm looking forward to that. My plan is to attempt something James has mentioned in the past - a Turducken. I have the three birds thawing as we speak. I will post photos after the day, assuming they are photo worthy. Or of course they could be a tutorial in how NOT to do it! Time will tell. 

Yesterday was James' 20th birthday! Congratulations James. I was invited to join the family for supper and what a feast it was. Escargot, grilled steak, crablegs, , etc, etc. It was truly wonderful. 

I volunteered to bake the birthday cake. I had good intentions and some research gave me ideas but it didn't quite work out as planned. However, I did learn a thing or two along the way so all was not lost.

The goal was to cut into the cake and have it appear like camouflage inside. I coloured some of the batter and dropped portions into the cake pans. In retrospect I should have done at least two things: colour all of the batter, not just some, so it would all be camo. and also do not swirl the colours together. It might have worked better had I not swished around a toothpick into the batters. In the end it looked more like flowers and leaves! Lessons learned.

Once they were baked and cooled, I wanted to inject a bit of a surprise. So two of the three layers had a hole cut into the middle. They were stacked and candies poured into the middle, before the third layer was placed on top.

My goal was to ice the cake camouflaged to look like a tree. It kind of worked, but it needed something on top. I was able to find a Christmas decoration that lit up, that sort of looked like a tree. It had lights but no leaves, so I glued some from a garland I was able to find at the same time. Necessity is indeed the mother of invention!

 In the end it kind of worked and they were pretty happy when the candies poured out of the middle when it was cut!

  

So all in all it actually went quite well. Again, Happy Birthday James.

It's been a busy few days leading up to Christmas. James got home on Friday and he came out to have lunch with me on Sunday. I invited our next door neighbours to join us and they really enjoyed chatting.

It was very nice to spend some quality time with James. 

Then Monday was lunch at Nancy's. Marla and Linda joined us and I was overwhelmed by the caring and generosity of these ladies. Everyone has been so kind to me and I'm so grateful to be in such a good place. Even a special delivery from the East Coast with not one, but two kinds of fruitcake and a special island publication, made this a very special week. Certainly a different Christmas from last year. In spite of Covid I'm feeling very blessed this year. 

So Merry Christmas to you all who read this (okay all 5 of you!) See you after Christmas and stay safe everyone.

One last thing: a friend posted this on facebook and it totally sums us this year. Thanks Jan.

Sunday, December 6th - Welcome to decorating on a dime!

 Our first snowfall came and went, but a second one arrived about a week later. It's mostly still here so it does tend to put you into a Christmasy kind of mood. Helps to take your mind off all the nasty stuff going on in the world, and especially in our own back yard, so to speak.

We are into our second week of Code Red, which means tighter restrictions for everyone. We were anxiously awaiting an announcement on Friday that we would be going into Grey zone, which would mean total lockdown, but fortunately that hasn't happened .. yet.

It has certainly been a very challenging year but hopefully we will come out of it soon, although it's not looking too promising. So instead I'm trying to focus on the positives.

As I had mentioned before, I'm using some of the downstairs apartment. The dining room isn't finished, as I had hoped, but one morning I was looking around the empty living room and thought, we can turn this room into a Christmas dining paradise. (okay, in my mind at least!)

There's an electric fireplace in the living room so I set up a tree (generously on loan from Patti - long story as I did bring one from PEI).  The next thing I needed was table and chairs. Good thing I work at a thrift store. Besides our stand alone store with clothing, housewares, etc we have a furniture store in the mall next door. Let me tell you, it's a very dangerous place for a bargain hunter like me! When all was said and done I secured a table long enough to accommodate the eight matching chairs for $70. Meghan was kind enough on her day off to bring a truck to the store to carry it home and inside.  Now I'm all set.

The kitchen downstairs is pretty much finished. I fashioned an island to give me extra work space with next to nothing. I found a dresser at the store for $12 cause the top was scratched. No problem as I was going to put something on top anyway. Some leftover paint from Patti served to spruce the whole thing up. My neighbour had this lovely piece of wooden counter top with beveled edges in his shed. It has some water damage so there are some marks that won't sand out but all in all it works. That cost me a loaf of homemade bread and a dozen butter tarts.

I found a range hood for the stove as there wasn't one, online for $5 and a microwave for $10 so I'm pretty much set. The other side of the kitchen has a floor to ceiling bank of cupboards that holds a lot of stuff. Very efficient for me. 

The living room window

One of the things that I really love about the downstairs are the windows Both the living room and kitchen have gorgeous stained glass.

The kitchen window

So I've been using the kitchen to do my baking for Christmas. We had our volunteer day last week at the store  and all of our cookies were happily consumed. Three of us each made 10 dozen cookies and they were pretty much gone by the next morning, so a success.

Now that most of my baking is done, and the tree is up, I think I'm ahead of schedule. My shopping is done and everything is wrapped and under the tree. I thought it best to get everything done earlier rather than later as red zone restrictions now mean standing in line outside of the store waiting to get in. It was fine in the summer when it was warm but not my idea of a good time now that it's cold. 

My last day to work at the store before we shut down for the holidays is December 18th, which is also the day that James comes home. It will be great to have everyone together again.