Christmas in Grand Haven 2012

Jack, Sugar and I had a wonderful Christmas. It was most relaxing and totally enjoyable. We started the day with tea of course. Then we opened our gifts and had some more tea. As you can see, not really a white Christmas. Green with scattered white. As I've said before, we haven't had a tree or exchanged gifts in years. The travel was our Christmas. So this year staying home we put up a tree and agreed to one gift of no more than $25. Sugar got dog bakery cookies.

Thanks to Adam I found a John Wayne ornament for Jack. He loves John Wayne movies. When not on the tree he plans on hanging it by his desk, possibly on the window frame. Jack got me prep bowls for the kitchen. I was very excited. Yes, buying kitchen bowls for me is a fine thing to do. All three gifts were bought at local small Grand Haven stores.

Sugar enjoying a cookie.

Another cup of tea before Jack and Sugar took a walk and I did some indexing. I'm indexing a book with 1000+ pages so I figured I'd put a little time in on it.

Our neighbor left us a sweet treat.

Then it was time for our noon matinee movie. The munchies were better than popcorn.

The American President is one of our most favorite movies. Always a nice feel good movie. However, I did find it a tad depressing that this movie made in 1995 was about trying to get two bills through Congress - Crime Bill and Global Warming Bill. Except for the fact that we now use the more accurate term Climate Change, nothing has changed. These issues have still not been addressed.

After the movie, it was time to make Christmas dinner. I tried out a new recipe for Lentil and Mushroom Shepard's Pie. It turned out quite nice. Jack said, "It's a keeper." This translated means I should make it again. I wasted no time in putting my new prep bowls to work and they were great. They are heavy so they don't slide around or tip.

Jack helped with the mashing and Sugar helped with the droppings.

Ready to go.

I wasn't happy with how the biscuits turned out. I overworked them a bit. They tasted fine - just didn't get a good height. Jack said they were just fine and finished them for breakfast this morning with peanut butter. We'll finish the Shepard's Pie tonight or tomorrow.

After dinner we loafed around for awhile and then it was time for movie number two.

Love Actually is just a wonderful feel good movie. We laughed and cried. I always say a movie that makes you laugh and cry is perfect.

We finished the day off with National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. All and all a great day.