Christmas 2018

 Claude and I made 84 pierogi in about three hours.  We even had them for lunch with Polish sausage. In all the years we've been making them I never thought of sampling them for lunch.  We'd always have sandwiches.  We had the cripples, but they were still good.  We had more splits than previous years and we can't figure the cause.

Claude washed and I dried and put away all the preparing dishes; that was a big job.  I rested in the afternoon and went to midnight mass.  The church was less than half full.  What a shame that more people didn't come to hear the lovely choir.

On Christmas Day I had a light breakfast and started putting things in my suitcase.  It's so heavy without anything in it, and I'm sure I won't wear everything, and I'll wish I had brought something else.  Time went faster than I thought before it was time to leave to pick up Peter to go to Laura and Jay's.  He was ready to go with a bouquet of flowers for Laura.  He is so thoughtful.  We got there at exactly 2:00 pm and before we got out of the car he asked why are we the first ones to arrive.  He no more than said it when Claude pulled up before us.  Then we noticed the Dorns' car already in the driveway, which is unusual because they usually arrive last.  But Janice was making hot appetizers.  She had a wonderful assortment of stuffed mushrooms with a soy sauce, vegetables in wrappers, cheesy cauliflower biscuits and cream cheese rolled in dried cranberries.  We had these wonderful appetizers with a citrus cocktail of Laura's creation. It really beat the cheese and crackers that we normally have.  We visited until it was time for me to prepare the pierogi while the beef tenderloin was finishing.  The table was set so beautifully, as it always is, but this time our silverware was in cross stitched stockings.

I usually take a group picture when we are all at the table, but that takes time while food might be cooling off.  We were still in relaxing mood so I took our picture before we were ready to eat.

Besides the pierogi, we had a celery salad, roasted tomatoes and the most tender tenderloin imaginable.  Peter said it was like butter, hardly needed cutting.  It was magnificent.

Cookies were our dessert with coffee.  Janice felt so bad because she forgot to make one for Claude.  She took a lot of ribbing, especially when he looks forward to having his with coffee that he drinks only with a gingerbread cookie.  But Jay improvised.

Every cookie that I tried was delicious, and I had some to take home.