We had not had a Christmas meal because we were busy cleaning house in preparation for our guests. We had let the children know a couple days before, and they were able to pour their excitement into cleaning house.
We decided to have a special meal today, using the turkey I’d found last week. I enjoy baking birds.
Last night I made a brine to keep the turkey in overnight. I boiled lettuce, carrots, onions, celery, and garlic before making a puree. I then added spices and put the bird into a large bucket, covering it completely.
This morning, I separated the skin from the meat and inserted freshly made butter with spices mixed in it. That makes the meat more moist and flavorful.
During the day, we worked on packing things up for Lamar and Beulah. Andrew’s are taking a number of cases back for them. We also cleaned house a bit–with two families, there is always lots of upkeep.
For morning snack time, the children finished decorating the Christmas cookies. We then ate them for our snack before taking naps. We decided to have a mid-afternoon meal to keep it from getting too late.
The ladies then cooked up the other parts of the menu. We had mashed potatoes and gravy, broccoli salad, sweet potato casserole, ham rolls, and pumpkin casserole, as well as turkey.
I was rather pleased with how the turkey turned out. It’s gratifying to have a successful dish, especially when there are guests. The potatoes and gravy were the perfect addition to the turkey.
Andrew worked on his sermon for this coming Sunday because we plan to be away Saturday. We all are still recovering from colds that hit us all at once. It’s been a sleepy, rainy, achey couple of days.
This evening, we played table games again. The children went to bed at a reasonable hour. Andrew stayed up a little, but he is fighting a stronger cold than the rest, so he went to bed. The other three of us are waiting to see what the new year brings.
Juan David 