Getting back to normal

Just a quick post to update everyone on what has happened to me since my last post.  Well, I was sick.  Very sick.  In a lot of pain.  So, the blog suffered.  I had surgery in October, right at the beginning of the holiday commercial season, so, if you have to be laid up in bed recovering, what better way to do it.

My surgery was two days before Halloween, so I was able to get my house ready for trick or treaters, and then I handed it all over to my grown up girls.  After the 31st I instructed the kids in taking down the Halloween decorations, and getting them kind of put away the way I
do it.

Then I slowly, over the course of the month of November, got the house all decorated, inside and out for Christmas.  Even without my actual manual labor the whole thing turned out pretty good.


So, it wasn't my usual over the top display, but, it will do for this year.  I've spent most of the holiday pretty much in bed, but, watching holiday specials and movies has made the whole thing bearable.

Now that I'm back on my feet and ready for another great year, it's time to say farewell to 2014 and hello to 2015.

Six Months Til Christmas!!!

Yes, just six months and it will be Christmas.  I'm just a day behind, as yesterday was exactly six months til Christmas, or, as it is known in the vernacular, Rudolph Day.

This weekend we will be having Thanksgiving in June, as a prelude to Christmas in July. It's a good thing I have these traditions, as one of my older daughters will be in Asia all this Fall, and will miss Thanksgiving. So, she is especially appreciative of her old Mum for being so crazy.

We, of course, do not have all of our Thanksgiving food in June. Just a turkey, mashed potatoes with gravy, corn on the cob, cranberries, and for desert, pumpkin pie.  We hit the highlights is all. What we leave out is the sweet potatoes, brussels sprouts with pancetta, egg nog, stuffing (well I may concede to making stuffing this time as it is my traveling daughter's favorite), crescent rolls, the traditional brunch buffet of finger foods for during the Macy's parade, and we will have ice cream instead of whipped cream on the pumpkin pie.

 I think this year I may go one better and have a variation on the pumpkin pie, like, pumpkin cheesecake for instance. That's the beauty of having an extra holiday season, you can play around with recipes. There are just some things you cannot mess with at Thanksgiving without upsetting somebody.

  The traditions are not just expected, the lack there of can cause something of an international incident. So, what better time to try out that Pinterest recipe for a completely different stuffing than June? It's perfect.

Buying a turkey this time of year isn't horribly expensive either. Yes, they are holdovers from Thanksgiving and Christmas, but, they have been frozen so they are just as good. What I should probably do when they go on extreme sale after Christmas is grab a couple of them for our summer celebrations. Either way, we're talkin lots of leftovers, so, it's still a bargain.

Building the Christmas playlist

Building a Christmas playlist is a daunting task. With so many wonderful versions of the literally countless holiday songs, the idea of compiling them all into a playlist seems overwhelming. But, listen to Christmas music we must. The playlist will of course have to vary in selection and in mood, without repeating the same song with only a change in the version or performer. So, how is one to accomplish this all important job?  Sigh, with hard work, time, and organization.  That's the only way.

To begin with, we must organize our holiday music collection into categories.  My chosen category names are Spiritual, Classical, Old Favorites, New Age, Movie Hits, Rockin, Jazz, and Kids. I am careful to put each song into the most fitting category.  This could mean stacking CD's in piles, or boxes labeled for the category, or, in the case of digital copies, creating a playlist folder appropriately labeled to drop them in. For compilations the task is a bit more complicated.  We will have to either put them in a category already created, or, if they are truly a diverse compilation, we may have to make a separate category just for them.

After all the available music is categorized, we then move onto removing songs that are either duplicates or we just don't like them enough to have them in a playlist.  This could involve making a note for each CD, perhaps a sticky note, with the names of the songs we do want, or, removing the digital copies from our playlists.




That is truly the most time intensive part of this job.  Now it's time for the fun part, making our playlists, and yes, I do have more than one.  After all, I'm not always in the mood for the happy, peppy songs like Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer or It;s a Marshmallow World.  There are plenty of times I want the playlist to just be soft and cozy feeling.  Other times I may want to hear a variety that moves from one category to another randomly. So, that adds another category, and you can name it anything you want, I prefer to just call it Christmas, with the other specific categories being Christmas Jazz, Christmas Spiritual, etc.  Those are the final playlist names, and if you just want one playlist that contains everything, the job is almost done.

So, now I have my categories sorted, with all duplicates and unwanted songs removed.  Now, make sure you know how much space you have in your music storage device, be it a hard drive or I-pod or what have you. If you don't have enough you will need to clear it for your music, because we all know that the music takes priority.  Something else will just have to go, or be stored elsewhere.

Now comes to time intensive part. Here is where you create the final playlist folders, with the final names you have chosen. With your digital songs you will just be dragging and dropping them from their original folders to the final folders. The CD's will be a slow going process of inserting the CD, selecting the songs you want to download and into the folders you want, and then wait while they move from CD to folder. Lather, rinse, repeat.  Yada yada yada.

After all of your songs are transferred into your final folders I highly recommend backing up your playlists to either an external hard drive or a cloud drive. The last thing you want is to have to repeat this whole process over again if your current hard drive crashes.

And there you go. 

Christmas in July!!

Every year we try to celebrate Christmas in July, partly because it's fun and partly because it's halfway to Christmas and we're having a hard time waiting. So, we bring a few of our traditional foods into a holiday style dinner.  Sure, we could put up a tree and share gifts but that is just more than we want to do.  It's all about the Spirit of Christmas after all.  So, on goes the Christmas music and at one point we watch a holiday movie. We make only some of the things we typically have for Christmas dinner, but, leave out some so we maintain the specialness of the actual holiday.

This year we are going to be starting a few new traditions for Christmas in July that will set it apart from our December celebration and create a unique new holiday.

To start with, we will have a barbecue.  When cooking on the grill, Christmas doesn't usually spring to mind, but, using a little imagination we can fix that.

Let's start with the appetizers.

Sparkling Cranberry Brie Bites will be a nice way to nibble while we wait. 

Lumps of Coal made from Oreo cookies and Rice Krispies adds a bit of fun for the kids.

To drink we'll have two decanters. One with cold water labeled Melted Snowflakes and the other with lemonade labeled Yellow Snow.

For the main courses we'll bring in the typical turkey but give it a barbecue twist by using turkey breast and legs and grilling them. The side dishes will be Sweet Potato Fries 

Mozzarella Avocado Tomato Salad with it's green and yellow color

For fun after dinner we'll have a snow ball fight.  Yes, I said a snow ball fight, in July.  Here's how that works.

Get a bunch of white water balloons.  Fill with water and throw. 

You could be as creative as you want, with holiday versions of most backyard games. 

For dessert we'll be having Santa Hat Brownies

Egg Nog Cupcakes

and Big Bad Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

And to top it all off, instead of hot chocolate, we will have Chocolate Italian Sodas. 

The decor will be in holiday colors but decidedly Christmas-y, with white lights in the smaller trees, and the larger trees up-lit in red and green. We'll have Christmas music playing, and the tables will be set with our Christmas best. Everyone will be expected to dress for the occasion, in reds, greens, white, and be as creative as they want.

I've saved the best part for last. As we all know, Christmas is a time for giving, and no celebration of that wonderful season would be complete without some kind of special service to some unsuspecting neighbor. This year we will be making peach preserves and setting jars on the doorsteps of some of our neighbors just as we would at Christmas. 

So there you have it. I'd love to hear your thoughts, or about your own Christmas in July celebrations. 

The most wonderful time of the year is now in a blog, too!!!!

I've been told before that I should open a Christmas store, and I've thought about it, but, the amount of money I would need just to get it going is out of the question for now, so, why not start a blog about my holiday craziness I thought. This is my answer to that question.

I hope you enjoy my ramblings and postings. Feel free to share if you'd like.