[Hitch]

Originally Posted by CRussel

I am resisting the temptation to work, but otherwise we're not doing much. Yeah, we listened to the Queen's Message, and I am cooking a duck for dinner. But that's it.

Ohhhh, duck. Duck is easy to do badly, but I'm a sucker for Duck done perfectly. Or evenly reasonably well.

OTOH, I do wish all my friends here a safe and healthy holiday season.

ABSO-POSITVE-LY. I wish ALL my MR friends--and even some of you who don't much like my humor {ahem, you know who you are!!!}--a fabulous, safe and terrific Holiday season.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Dinner here was ham, with sweet potatoes and Brussels sprouts from the farmer's market. (One in convenient distance means a lot of "What's for supper?" questions resolve to "What's in season?" I'm all in favor.)

Also a favorite--the ham--and I really like fresh Brussels. We shred them and saute them. Yum. Not a sweet potato fan; I'm a savory girl, not a sweets gal. I admit a silly partiality to Honeybaked hams. I know, I know, ridiculously expensive, but we can't get good east-coast hams here.

I do still drink - primarily single malt whisky - but that's a social event, done with friends. I don't drink alone, and the friends I imbibe with aren't local, so drinking happens a few times a year.

Ah, t'was me own drink, back in the day. A nice single-malt. None of that blended crap. Why drink crap?

I haven't done a wedding/reception is quite some time, and the few I have done required alcohol as a counter-irritant. (In a couple of cases, not laying bets on how long the marriage would last, given the bride and groom involved, required serious exercise of will... )

I know that engaged women and men, and bridezillas don't want to hear this, but the pathetic truth is, the vast majority of weddings--whether cheap, expensive, big, small--are almost unendurable without the liberal application of hooch. I literally can't remember the last "good" wedding I went to--possibly, only possibly, my sister's, about 20+ years ago, even though I'd already given up the demon rum at the time--because I got to see family I'd not seen in dogs' years. The rest are simply horrid.

We do watch the ball drop from the tower in Times Square on TV, and despite having lived in NYC for decades, I've never joined the in person mobs who pack the area. I can't imagine doing so. A few years back, a local corporation distributed 6' long white balloons to revelers, and an aerial shot of the crowd made it look like waving cilia, as though a giant rotifer was eating Manhattan. I was just as happy to watch it on TV from some distance away.

Yup, you got me. As an old (in all senses of that word) New Yorker, I watch the ball drop too. I miss the Christmas season in NY, even thought I haven't been there in {mumble} years. Y'know, Macy's, Rockefeller Center, the whole schmear. So to speak.

It's money. You aren't otherwise occupied. No reason not to.
______
Dennis

Yeah. It feels a bit Philistine, however. OTOH, there's peace and quiet that I rarely get, so...in that sense, it's luxurious. Ah, well.

Merry Christmas, Gang!

Hitch