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Back from Christmas in Vermont with family.
So, Lis and I went to my grandparents' cabin in the woods of Vermont for Christmas Eve. Where "cabin" means "three-bedroom-and-a-sleeping-loft, two-and-a-half bath Colonial", and "woods" means "right off the main road of a small town, but not SO small that it doesn't have several good restaurants and a couple museums".
Starting out on a road trip requires a good breakfast, so, after packing and loading the car, we had breakfast at the diner down the street. Before we finished, Jarret, who's one of the grill cooks, told us he had something for us, and gave us a black-and-white photo he'd taken of us -- we'd forgotten, but his graduate project at art school involved an exhibition of photos of his customers at the diner, and he was giving each of us copies of our photos as Christmas presents.
Then we headed northward to the place in Vermont.
Sleeping fifteen people there is tricky, and involves sleeping bags, but apparently, there's a major advantage to being the oldest grandchild, and being actually married, which is that Lis and I scored one of the bedrooms. My grandparents, of course, had the master bedroom, since that's their bedroom, after all, my aunt Dianne and uncle Walter got the downstairs bedroom, but Lis and I got the third one. Dad got the fold-out sofa in the entrance room . . . and my five cousins and their three friends-and/or-significant-others spread out among the sleeping loft and sofas downstairs. I think Penne and Jack, the Soule's two dogs, slept with Dianne and Walter.
All four of the Soule cousins were there, along with, of course, Meghan's fiance Patrick and a college friend of Lizzie named Clint. Only one of the Australian cousins was there, the oldest, Shannon, and she brought her boyfriend Jameel. Because, of course, everybody wants to leave summer in Australia to come to Christmas in snowy Vermont.
I made a glogg (a Scandinavian version of mulled wine which includes cardamom -- the one I made involved cheap red wine, port, brandy, sugar, dried orange peel, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, and just a dash of orange blossom water) for everybody, which went over well. Eventually, I lit the hannukiah Lis and I brought, because, y'know, why not, and we had a Christmas dinner of roastbeast beef, mashed potatoes, roasted Brussels sprouts, and ginger glazed carrots, followed by pie, pie, ice cream, cookies, and pie. Then we hung out, played some backgammon (to which none of us could QUITE remember the rules, but we know we came close), and decided to play a game of Apples to Apples but never got around to it. I hung out chatting with cousins until one of the OTHER cousins came down from the sleeping loft and asked us to keep it down, because they were actually trying to sleep.
In the morning, there was toast and coffee, and after that, we started working on cooking breakfast. Breakfast was a sort of souffle, along with a grapefruit and clementine salad, and fennel-chicken sausage. The souffle-thing was a group effort: Meghan cut the crusts off a loaf of bread, then lined two rectangular casserole dishes with the slices, to be a sort of crust, Patrick cracked and mixed three dozen eggs, and I grated a pound of cheddar cheese. One of the souffles got jalapenios and mushrooms; the other was plain. Then Walter baked it.
My Uncle Bob and Aunt Annie showed up after a bit, and then we had ACTUAL breakfast, at about eleven. We finished up about quarter to noon, which, of course, meant that we only had fifteen minutes before lunch . . . okay, fine, we skipped lunch, and went right to presents.
Besides the Yankee Swap, Lis and I got some gorgeous sweaters, a copy of the The Gashlycrumb Tinies, a bottle of limoncello, and a gorgeous sepia-toned photo of us taken by cousin Erica.
Erica got a phonecall a bit after that, and found out that Family Drama had happened. Not with OUR family, though, which generally gets through the holidays without any significant drama -- but with the family of a good friend of hers, and she really needed to get back home to deal with it. Lis and I had been planning on heading out around that time, anyway, so we three packed up, then drove back homeward.
We got back to our home stomping grounds by about four, which was early enough that we were able to actually honor Lis's family Christmas traditions, too, by going out for Chinese food. Then we came home, where our cats have been reasonably pleased to see us.
Starting out on a road trip requires a good breakfast, so, after packing and loading the car, we had breakfast at the diner down the street. Before we finished, Jarret, who's one of the grill cooks, told us he had something for us, and gave us a black-and-white photo he'd taken of us -- we'd forgotten, but his graduate project at art school involved an exhibition of photos of his customers at the diner, and he was giving each of us copies of our photos as Christmas presents.
Then we headed northward to the place in Vermont.
Sleeping fifteen people there is tricky, and involves sleeping bags, but apparently, there's a major advantage to being the oldest grandchild, and being actually married, which is that Lis and I scored one of the bedrooms. My grandparents, of course, had the master bedroom, since that's their bedroom, after all, my aunt Dianne and uncle Walter got the downstairs bedroom, but Lis and I got the third one. Dad got the fold-out sofa in the entrance room . . . and my five cousins and their three friends-and/or-significant-others spread out among the sleeping loft and sofas downstairs. I think Penne and Jack, the Soule's two dogs, slept with Dianne and Walter.
All four of the Soule cousins were there, along with, of course, Meghan's fiance Patrick and a college friend of Lizzie named Clint. Only one of the Australian cousins was there, the oldest, Shannon, and she brought her boyfriend Jameel. Because, of course, everybody wants to leave summer in Australia to come to Christmas in snowy Vermont.
I made a glogg (a Scandinavian version of mulled wine which includes cardamom -- the one I made involved cheap red wine, port, brandy, sugar, dried orange peel, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, and just a dash of orange blossom water) for everybody, which went over well. Eventually, I lit the hannukiah Lis and I brought, because, y'know, why not, and we had a Christmas dinner of roast
In the morning, there was toast and coffee, and after that, we started working on cooking breakfast. Breakfast was a sort of souffle, along with a grapefruit and clementine salad, and fennel-chicken sausage. The souffle-thing was a group effort: Meghan cut the crusts off a loaf of bread, then lined two rectangular casserole dishes with the slices, to be a sort of crust, Patrick cracked and mixed three dozen eggs, and I grated a pound of cheddar cheese. One of the souffles got jalapenios and mushrooms; the other was plain. Then Walter baked it.
My Uncle Bob and Aunt Annie showed up after a bit, and then we had ACTUAL breakfast, at about eleven. We finished up about quarter to noon, which, of course, meant that we only had fifteen minutes before lunch . . . okay, fine, we skipped lunch, and went right to presents.
Besides the Yankee Swap, Lis and I got some gorgeous sweaters, a copy of the The Gashlycrumb Tinies, a bottle of limoncello, and a gorgeous sepia-toned photo of us taken by cousin Erica.
Erica got a phonecall a bit after that, and found out that Family Drama had happened. Not with OUR family, though, which generally gets through the holidays without any significant drama -- but with the family of a good friend of hers, and she really needed to get back home to deal with it. Lis and I had been planning on heading out around that time, anyway, so we three packed up, then drove back homeward.
We got back to our home stomping grounds by about four, which was early enough that we were able to actually honor Lis's family Christmas traditions, too, by going out for Chinese food. Then we came home, where our cats have been reasonably pleased to see us.
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