The Celebration

 Last night was our Christmas with Levi and Mattie. To that end, I spent the day making food. The sloppy joes took 4 pounds of ground meat. 

Apache Doug asked for the recipe. I quadrupled my regular recipe, but here is what I use for Tim and me.

1 lb ground beef (you can use mix ground turkey and beef if you are cutting costs).

1/2 cup diced onion

1/2 cup chopped pepper

3 cloves of garlic 

1 cup ketchup

1 tbls brown sugar

1 tsp yellow mustard 

Brown the meat, drain grease. Sautee the onion, garlic, and peppers. Add the meat, mix. Add the ketchup  mustard and brown sugar and let it simmer (I dump it in a crock pot and let it simmer for an afternoon.) Salt and pepper to taste. 

Let me know what you think, Doug.

I made a loaf of Bovey Belle's date bread to take, finally finishing off a two pound box of dates that has been troubling me. 

I also made an ice cream cake. 

As I worked inside, the wind picked up outside and it was snowing hard. After a day of rain, it made the roads pretty slushy. As the temperatures continued to drop, things began to freeze. The winds got quite strong. 

It was quite a job getting the car loaded in the wind. It was icy and slippery. Once we set off, we had a bit of an issue with the wind. Roads were drifting and there were whiteouts. It took us 20 minutes longer than usual before we were pulling into their drive way.

The kids were beginning to believe we were not coming. I knew they would be worried. Reuben had run down to the neighbor's house to use their phone to call. Unfortunately, I had walked out of the house without my phone, which made them even more worried.

Levi said "The weather is bad..."

I said, "We would hate to disappoint these kids."

Once inside, dinner was served up very quickly. Mattie had made potatoes with sausage, and had set out some of their 'traveler's sausage' to try. (It was very good). 

We did not gather around the big table like usual. It was cold, and so we filled our plates and we all ate in the toasty livingroom around the brand new woodstove. 

There was hunting news to share. The three oldest boys had all taken nice bucks. Levi got a big doe. Tales were swapped on that topic. It had gotten so cold that the ice was thick enough to cut and fill their ice house before Christmas. Not unheard of, but an uncommon thing all the same. 

The kids ate very quickly and sat staring at the presents. The adults were still eating. I suggested that they look through the tote of books while they waited. I love how excited they get about books. The boys were pleased with the Patrick McManus books. They do love a laugh. They had never heard of the Island of the Blue Dolphins, and were amazed to hear that it was based on an actual event. Mattie said "I want to read that, myself!" Levi asked a question I thought was quite interesting: "after 18 years, did she even remember how to talk?" I had to admit that it had been 55 years since I read the book. So I did not know. The topic of books went on for a while. Little David stood in the middle of the floor 'reading' a book to himself. He got quite excited when he found a book about bears. 

Eventually presents were opened. It was a lively event as always. They loved 'Uncle Wiggily'. I told them that I had played it as a child more than sixty years ago, and that the game had originally been my mother's. Levi remembered playing it from his own childhood. There was a wagon full of blocks and they played and played with the tin carousel. The doll house was a hit. So was Noah's ark. Popping Pirate. Puzzles. Reuben worked the hanayama metal puzzle determinedly. I finally took pity on him and showed him the solution video. Someone in the house needed to know how to do it.

 That set them off. They have lots of tricks. An outhouse that explodes. Wooden puzzles which defy solution. Druscilla took great delight in using her hands to hide what she was doing when she solved one of them.

It was a fun night. Rudy fell asleep with a book in his hand. Lissy fell asleep by her father's chair. It was clearly time to go. 

We made our way back down the hill, quiet and happy. It really is just the nicest way to celebrate Christmas.