Yep…the greatest of salutations to you and yours no matter which holiday you celebrate or what name you give it. Round here it’s Christmas and we say Merry…but your mileage, religious convictions, social presence, influencer friends or whatever might lead you in some different direction…but ya’ll be ya’ll as we southerners say.

Or…as I found on the interwebs for ya…a politically correct holiday greeting.

Best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral, winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most joyous traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, but with respect for the religious persuasion of others who choose to practice their own religion as well as those who choose not to practice a religion at all;

Additionally, a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the generally accepted calendar year 2000, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions have helped make our society great, without regard to the race, creed, color, religious, or sexual preferences of the wishes.

(Disclaimer: This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others and no responsibility for any unintended emotional stress these greetings may bring to those not caught up in the holiday spirit.)

 

Anyways…we got some good stuff here this morning. Neil got some various and assorted camera and computer stuff he needs for the upcoming photo trips to Africa, Costa Rica with Connie and Glacier National Park (the first in April and the latter 2 in July). She got some clothes she picked out…and a couple of other things she decided she wanted to do. And tomorrow it’s Old People Tuesday at Bealls…that’s a store down here in FL…and that means we get a discount and she’s also got a birthday certificate that  runs out the end of the year so off we go to battle the hordes tomorrow.

Oh yeah…Neil got a red Hawaiian shirt too…’cuz if you go to the Elks Lodge on Friday (which they do albeit not every week)…you’re supposed to wear red and he didn’t have anything red so just pointed to the red flower on his shirt or whatever as meeting the standards. Connie got a couple of red dresses and a red top…but one thing she needs tomorrow from Bealls is some green stuff. As choir member and psalmist she’s supposed to wear the correct color to match the color vestments the priest is wearing and the changes Sunday to Sunday with green being the most popular color for what is called “Ordinary Time”…which is essentially everything except for Advent and Lent. She’s practically green-less so wants to have more options there…and heck, Old People Tuesday and birthday discount so…SCORE!!

I got some commentary on all the current political, social, and world order la-di-da going on right now…but it’s Christmas so I’ll save that for next time.

It’s raining today…not hard but we’re supposed to get a thunderstorm around 1300 but be better by dinner time…which is excellent because he’s got these lamb chops that been marinating and percolating in the fridge since yesterday in some good stuff and they are much better on the grill. He’s got a fancy tater dish and pearl onions with cheese cream sauce for sides and a bottle of Chalk Hill Pinot Noir to go along with it…and we’ll have a snack of Prosciutto and Gruyere cheese in the afternoon sometime. Don’t know about dessert…we’ve got Pecan Pie Brownies in the freezer and if they’re still hungry than thawing a couple of those out happens lickety split and toss on some whipped cream in the can and as Justin Wilson used to say…”It be wondermous!!” (Ya gotta say that with a Cajun accent though). And if you don’t know who Justin is…well, he was actually a safety engineer down in Louisiana that was a pretty darned good chef so got himself on TV for awhile back in the 1970s or 80s…you can go
here to get a small taste of his accent and viewpoints.

Edited…ok, now that we’ve had our dinner I wanted to give you a report. We had some Apple wine that we won in a gift basket thing at the Elks fr happy hour…then had the Chalk Hill Pinot Noir but we opened that while we were cooking and it was gone by dinner so we opened a bottle of Lions Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon with dinner but were good and only had a glass each of that. I an report that marinating lamb chops in fresh rosemary, wine vinegar, garlic, balsamic vinegar and olive oil for 26 hours and then grilling them to 125 degrees results in excellent lamb…which was then complimented by a glaze Neil made of orange marmalade, blueberry jam, a bit of the apple wine and a couple drops of hot sauce (Bill’s favorite Habanero sauce from up in Plant City) is mighty good. He sliced on the mandolin a couple of Russet taters and them mixed them with EVOO, smoked paprika, salt, and olive oil and then put them in couple of dishes for baking…they turn out sorta baked and sort fried. For veggies…he boiled about 8 ounces of frozen pearl onions. Then he chopped up a shallot and sautéed that in some duck fat and butter (hey, I said it would be good, not low calorie) then put in the chicken stock the did the onions in and some cream, Italian spices and butter and the ultimate secret for cream sauce…a bit of freshly ground nutmeg (not enough to taste but enough to alter the flavor and make it good but not nutmeg tasting. He poured that in a couple of dishes and topped with panko bread crumbs, more Italian spices, and some Grana Padona cheese (it’s like Parmesan sort of ) and tossed into the broiler for 5 minutes to melt and burn/carmelize slightly the cheese. And…it was really, really good. We’ll have a couple of pecan pie brownies later and a bit of eggnog the just might have a little hooch in it:-) They ate all the taters and onions but have 2 lamb chops to make something scrumptious out of later in the week.

Anyway…lessee what I got from prowling ‘round the internet for ya.

That’s about all I got fer today…so get yourselves to your holiday plans…we’re staying home today since we’re the least popular grandparents I reckon…but as Walter Cronkite used to say “and that’s the way it is for today, December 25th, 2023.” We miss old Walter…one of the last of the true journalists on the news who wanted to tell you the news, not be the news and did little to no soap boxing or slanting of the facts in his broadcasts. Once he was retired…he started stating more political things and was what would back then have been called practically a communist socialist politically but today it would just be progressive as times and attitudes have changed. Despite his personal feelings though (and they were very likely the same when he was the face of the CBS Evening News) it never came through in his broadcasts and for that we as people were better off back then.

Cyas.