Christmas Food-fest

Today is the first do-nothing day I’ve had in a while. One of the problems with Christmas is the frenetic activity that accompanies it. The shopping, the buying, the wrapping, and the cooking.

My brother and I did the cooking this year. For Christmas “dinner” (it’s actually more of a lunch) I prepared our traditional Christmas veggie lasagna, he made a wild-mushroom pie with polenta crust, and I rounded out the meal with some green beans with tomato and basil.

It was all delicious. It’s rare that either the lasagna or the mushroom pie are eaten on the day that they are made. The freshness was a joy. On my own plate I also added some of a salad that my mom had brought home from a part she’d gone to the previous night. And of course a Christmas meal wouldn’t  be complete without a shot of Nawg.

A couple of hours after our meal, I was wending my way to Dale’s* place for another Christmas dinner with the rest of my dear family. It was nice. I got to hold Troeesha for the first time. My, that girl can sleep through just about anything. I had her cradled in my arm as I sat with her and she nuzzled into my belly. Cute.

Anyway, as I was enjoying the time with family and friends, I was noticing that I was still full from the recently completed “dinner”. This was going to be a problem. …yeah it was.

As final dinner prep was going on, I felt my blood pressure drop and I started breaking out in a cold sweat. This wasn’t good. Familiar, but not good. As dinner was about to begin, I retreated to a side room and sacked out on a couch. Not feeling well at all. Mary, Joxer, and Jerry all came out at various times to check on me (yay, team). Eventually, I revisited lunch.

After that, I felt better and joined the crew in the post-meal afterglow. I have to say that I’m always amazed at the joy people get from alcohol. Don’t get me wrong, I like cooking with it. The green beans I made earlier would have been the poorer for the added wine which captures the alcohol-soluble flavors from the tomatoes. It’s the drinking of the various brews that confounds me. It’s probably good, then, that I don’t drink the stuff.

How ironic that it was me, again, excusing myself to embrace my dear friend the toilet bowl. I knew that I’d have to be heading home, soon, if I was going to journey forth at all. So, after a little bit more visiting, I said by goodbyes and headed home. Let’s just say that the timing of my arrival was impeccable.

This wasn’t exactly the way that I’d intended to celebrate Christmas. I guess I should be thankful…it offered me a fresh story for this here blog. Honestly, I’d rather have had a quiet night visiting with the family, but we don’t always get to script out the realities of our lives. We simply have to improvise when necessary. So…I’m just trying to get to feeling back to normal. I’m not quite there, yet. Hopefully, by this evening, food will cease being my enemy.

Merry Christmas