Four days until Christmas. Are you ready?
I am not ready. I still have made no cookies and gifts are not wrapped. On a positive note, though, the tree is up and decorated. Wrapping will be done Thursday so tomorrow I plan to begin my cookie baking and complete it on Wednesday. The plan is to make sugar cookies, buttery spritz cookies, and white chocolate oatmeal cranberry cookies. Depending on how quickly the baking process occurs for these cookies, I may add others.
Our meal for Christmas day is planned and the ingredients are here. We aren’t changing our meal this year so the preparation is easy. I need to throw in some new side dishes but that isn’t happening this year. I’ve got to look into that for next year. I like trying new things and most of the time, I’m a decent chef. This is the time of the year I tend to step out of the normal to try new things that could become part of our tradition. One of those experiments from the past is now a holiday staple, Cranberry Sausage Stuffing. So who knows what I’ll pull in next year and whether or not it will become part of our tradition.
While our entire family will not be together this year, I am attempting to get comfortable with the fact that this could be the new normal moving forward. I am not saying that I like it or that I will not push against the hard line, whatever that may be in the future. I am saying that I just need to wrap my mind around the potential of future holidays mirroring the ones in 2020.
Memories are a wonderful thing, if they are GOOD memories. I think I will be remembering our past holidays in lieu of the ones celebrated this year. That does not mean the holidays were unpleasant, they were not normal and honestly, I do not like the “NEW NORMAL.” (I even dislike the term.) The memories of everyone around the table eating and laughing will be the ones I cherish most.
Merry Christmas!
Matthew 2:6-7
“While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.”