Well, I crashed and burned, I'm afraid

I slept over 12 hours, maybe 13. But I feel ever so much better, and it's sunny rather than drizzly today.

So here we go:

Friday: Finished things up for the holiday at work, and then a friend took me to the store to buy last minute ingredients for dinner for the next night. I stayed at my other friend's house and we made spiced nuts and sugar cookies.

Saturday: Up early and over to my friend's house to start cooking. We prepped and cooked for eleven hours, making several courses and a 14 separate dishes, if you count the nuts and cookies from the day before. This included bleu cheese gougers, Danish onion soup (with a quart of champagne in it), salmon to die for, eggplant steaks with a filling that were then breaded and pan fried, stuffed tomatoes, spinach pie (it was supposed to be spanikopita, but I got puff pastry dough instead of filo, but it came out wonderful), braised onions, a butternut squash and goat cheese salad, and gingerbread cookies. I'm forgetting something, but it was all wonderful. Unfortunately we could only get through about five things that night, so I made plans to come back on Christmas day since the buses were running on a limited basis, in the early morning and then in the afternoon.

Sunday (Christmas Day): I was waiting at the bus stop shortly before 8 am with a little Santa hat on that my skeleton at work normally wears, and an SUV drove up with a woman getting out. At first I thought he was dropping her off (that often happens at that stop, as it's on the edge of where the bus goes). Then she handed me an envelope and said 'Merry Christmas', and got back in her vehicle. It had $50 in it. I thanked them and they drove away. So I was able to get groceries the next day, something that was sadly lacking in my house.

We had the rest of our meal and it was absolutely wonderful. Then I headed home and that night watched the Doctor Who Christmas special, 'The Doctor, the Widow, and the Wardrobe'. It was great.

Monday: I went back over to my friends' house and visited, watched The King's Speech, which was excellent, and then I spent an hour and a half making both potato and cheese latkes for Chanukah (one of my friends is Jewish). They came out better than any batch I've ever made. We sat down and ate and had a good time. I headed home and got here about midnight.

So you can see it's been a busy weekend. In a few days I'm going to visit my family for a low-key visit. I was just so overwhelmed at Thanksgiving that I decided it would be less hectic and involve more quality time if I chose a day other than the actual holiday, and I think it worked out splendidly. I hope your holidays went just as well.