In a compromise of the outdated Christmas traditions that I hate... Gene proposed that we host Christmas dinner at our house... with his parents, my brother and sister, and my dad and the new wife. Anyone who knows my family situation knows that this could be potentially nuclear.
My sister has only met stepmommy dearest once. I've only seen her three times in my life, and she's been married to my dad for about a year and a half. Granted, I don't see my father all that often, but most of the time when I do he's solo. My sister is the one that we need to worry about... because if anything does go nuclear, it's going to be her. She still doesn't know that we're doing Christmas dinner at my place. We will be going to see my dad's family after dinner, but stepmommy dearest will not be joining us. Probably. It's not that I'm keeping it from my sister and that it's going to be a surprise. I'm telling her this weekend probably. She's just on a Kairos retreat until tonight (it's a Catholic thing if you don't know what Kairos is).
I think that this is a sufficient compromise for now. When my hypothetical imaginary children are no longer hypothetical or imaginary, all of this will need to be revised. But until that complication comes to pass, we're playing it by ear. But now I have the stress of cooking Christmas dinner. Like...what the heck am I going to cook?
Right now, I'm leaning towards roast beef with a rich red wine sauce, my herbed potatoes that people usually go apeshit for (both my brother and Gene don't eat mashed potatoes), and some kind of vegetable something or other. And maybe rolls. I don't know. What else does one make for Christmas dinner? The reason I wanted to do roast beef is because that's what we usually have for dinner at my dad's, Gene doesn't eat ham, and I don't feel like making turkey. Oh, and if I made lamb, my brother and sister wouldn't eat. So roast beef wins. Plus it's fairly simple-ish. I also now feel like between now and Christmas I need to vaccuum, dust, and disinfect my entire house every single day so that it's dad-approved. The man is a little OCD when it comes to cleanliness, but God forbid he helps with cleaning chores. It's probably why I have a strong aversion to doing the dishes.
4 comments:
Last time I checked, that was YOUR house, paid with YOUR hard-earned money. You keep YOUR house the way YOU want! I've been to your house and it's always clean whenever I'm there and I know you don't nutso cleaning for me. Please don't stress over that... it's really not worth the ulcer. Your dad only got that way with my house. (climbing down off my bandwagon)
And if Christmas Eve is going to be a problem, we can visit maybe the Saturday after Christmas at either your place or mine (Dani will be in Portland by then).
As for your meal, appetizers? Keep it simple. A salad perhaps with a couple choices of dressing. Your now-famous pumpkin soup! Couple of desserts. If anyone offers to bring something, let them!
this is our third christmas dinner and i'm doing a ham (mm ordered it from harry & david or some such, so it just needs to be warmed up), a duck, garlic smashed red bliss potatoes, my famous (tj's) stuffing with onions, brussel sprouts with bacon, roasted cauliflower and broccoli, lima beans all mushy the way i like them (i don't know how to do this yet, but i believe it involves soaking dried beans overnight and cooking them forever), cranberry sauce because my brothers don't think it's a holiday without it, cheesey biscuits, an asparagus & procuitto pizza appetizer, veggie soup and dessert of cookies and truffles, and whatever my brother's confectionary genius girlfriend brings.
does that help??
Or you could do what Sal and I do... "Our house is just too small to invite everyone we'd like to!" Then we just cart all the presents and maybe one or two dishes to everyone else's house. :)
I'll be carting the presents to everyone else's house. It's not that I mind cooking; I love cooking and I'm good at cooking. I just don't know WHAT to make. I have to call Gene's mom and see what she thinks also since she's going to be helping me. I might make the pumpkin soup though. It's not the same as Kris's.. but it's close. So now it looks like roast beef, herbed potatoes, pumpkin soup, maybe corn and green beans? My friend Deb has a great recipe for green beans... but there's cashews in it (my sister's allergic)
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