I'm here! And I was all full of Christmas spirit too, what with having done some shopping while in Boston with DD, and finally gotten home in the wee hours, and today gone out to cut a tree and then made a nice dinner; all those good things. One bad thing--I burned myself badly getting a pan out of the oven. I have a very painful P-shaped burn on my hand. However I was going to do one thing before I went to bed: pack up a small box of my homemade Needhams candy for my stepmother, to send out to her tomorrow. Now I am in head-biting mood. Someone ate so many of the candies that there were only 5 left -- not enough for a gift, certainly. I don't even know who to be mad at -- I know DD ate several, but I know DH ate several too. I made him do the dishes before he went to bed (can't put a burned hand into hot water, y'know?), and I'm going to have DD dip candies tomorrow. But I've got to make up the filling tonight dammit. I was not planning on that. Piggies.

(Please note that I ate exactly ONE of these delectable items)

Hells Bells. Jingle. Merry Merry. Grr.

Oooh, Kiwi! I would have been on the warpath too! Bad, bad family. I have to put big DO NOT EAT signs on everything around here or it's history before you can turn around. Sorry about the burn - it sounds really ouchy. I hate it when that happens.

Just coming out of a three-day headache that I though would never go away. Had to go to a library lady Christmas get together last night and did NOT want to go, but it was all right despite the head pain. Spent this morning napping and this afternoon slogging around the house instead of baking more cookies. Meh.

Tomorrow will be a better day for everyone, right?

Hi Sug -- hope your headache is all gone by now. I swear I'm starting to think I'm accident prone or something. I pulled a muscle in my neck yesterday in my haste to try to do these candies, and I couldn't even help decorate the tree. Not exactly one of my better days.

Ridiculously, after discovering that I had to make another batch right off the other night, I scoured both freezers and finally gave up because I couldn't find the butter that I knew I had somewhere (maybe the moose meat sat on it). So yesterday, I went in to the store and got butter and came home and started that melting while I got the other ingredients together. That's when I starting pulling containers out of the pantry and wrenched my neck so badly I can barely move. And found out we didn't have any confectioner's sugar. So I gave up making candies, sent DH into town for sugar, and did some other errands with DD. While they put the tree up, I was making the dang candies. Last night I took a leftover prescription pain pills (you know, the kind you're supposed to dispose of after you are done with whatever they were prescribed for). At least I got a good night's sleep. But all presents from here on will be late. Tough

And how is everyone else doing?

ohhhhhhhhhh my lordy loo===i have no presents wrapped at all===the shop was so busy today =---we had our highest sales total in three years,so that was heartening------too bad i owe it all,haha!--both cars have decided that they want to be fixed at the same time {one cost 1300,the other around 600}---the taps broke {well one did,and so we had to replace them both}===another 150 bucks---so,it was so good of everything to break down at christmas----fill me heart with joy!!--i love christmas,but it's much nicer when all the gift anxiety is over and the eating begins!!!i am so sorry to hear of the injuries and headaches in the herd!!!! it makes for a crappy pre=holiday week----glad to hear the dd is home in mooseville---my dd's are here too so that is festive---they both worked in the shop today which was quite fun---we didn't even have one fight!!!

That sounds like a party! Bit different working with your (partially) grown kid, isn't it? DD and I still get totally ridiculous working together in the kitchen. Very amusing if I'm in the mood for it -- not so much fun if I'm in a hurry.

boy am I sore. I think when Christmas is over I should find a good masseuse. Or a chiropractor!

I have most of my wrapping to do too. Fortunately DH and DD have been getting theirs done, so tonight I will tackle mine.

It started to rain on all our lovely snow. That is not how it's supposed to work.

k

Raining like crazy here too. On Saturday we had what looked like snow, but it wasn't REAL snow, it was what they call Industrieschnee - industry snow. All the disgusting, dirty pollution particles from the factories and such combine with fog in the air, freeze and fall to the ground in weird crystally looking things. Bleh. Europe is not a clean place.

Wow, that's disgusting. We are all frozen over now; the snow melted and then froze. Our driveway is pretty much impassable, the plowed part of the yard is all ice and the worst part is that the melting uncovered mounds and mounds of dog poop that were nicely covered up with snow. Honest, I'm pretty good about cleaning those up, but when they get covered, It's really just what I wanted to do today! Shovel dog poop! Yay!

Where the hay is Cowpeachers! and other people who should be here telling us about their Christmas preparations et al

Kiwi

merry Christmas My Special Cow Friends!! I Hope You Are All Having A Good Day--we Are Off To Sissy's For Dinner--should Be About 40 People There---a Total Zoo,poor Sissy She Wants Someone To Bring Her Valium As Her Kids Were Up At Five Am!!! Hope To Hear From You All Soon!!! Love Youuuuuuuuuuseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!

Merry Christmas, Darlings!

It's after midnight so Xmas is officially over here. Survived the in-laws on Christmas Eve and had our own turkey dinner today. I have heartburn. Otherwise it was fun.

I'm worried about l'il Cherry and that horrible weather I've been hearing about on the news. Are you OK, Cherry?

And yes, where's Peachers???

Smooches to all of yous.

Merry Christmas!!

We have done the whole Christmas experience and I am tired, full and home on my own with my doggie. Last night and today at the in-laws was about enough for me, although it was fun and the food was good. This morning, DD got up early and the bf picked her up and they spent a few hours at his house, then they came back and we opened gifts, had coffee, talked to some friends and family on the phone. Then we all trooped down to the in-laws for giant sized dinner (both people-wise and food-wise). DH stayed to visit with his family and hook up electronic things; I opted to duck out a couple of hours ago with dd and bf. They dropped me off and went back to his house, so Jet and I are just hanging out on the computer, enjoying the quiet and lack of responsibility...

Hope everyone's day was lovely and thank you Cherry and Painterwoman for the lovely cards. You will have to forgive me this year; we just didn't do cards. Something had to give and that turned out to be it. This year, visiting people and turning out some homemade presents got more priority. I still wish I'd done more organizing and cleaning so I could have had a nicer decorated home, but that bus has sailed.

So to speak.

So what'd you all get for Christmas? I got the very cool Rolling Stone: Cover to Cover coffee table book/interactive DVD collection, some other computery stuff like a thumb drive, new version of Printmaster, photo paper etc, some nice clothes and toiletry items, a furminator!, a ton of personalized, beautiful or hilarious calendars (I think we have one for every room...), chocolate out my arse, some gift cards. DD got a gorgeous fleece lined leather jacket from her love, and he got fab leather gloves and a watch from her. For college students, they do pretty well.

I think I'll go gorge myself on chocolate. Later

Kiwi

I got a hand drawn comic book, a fridge magnet and a box of granola bars. No joke. Eat your heart out.

sugar pops!!! who gave you which gift is the question!!! we will assess from there!!----we have our danish delight here for christmas and it's quite fun having him around!! he tells us the stories of candle lit trees in Denmark and THEN,we had a tour of his home ----his mom took us around the place with the webcam----they had the sweetest tree and YES!,they light the candles AND DANCE AROUND THE CHRISTMAS TREE!!!!--- it was a much smaller tree that you could actually move around---we webcammed our house for them and they were shocked by the mother of a tree we had!!haha----probably around ten or twelve feet----no dancin around that baby!----i got a digital slr camera----i have been wanting a fancy pants camera for my shop cards---we sell alot of those and especially this year when i took alot of shots of the market and the snowstorm=====i like the way it works--- like the OLD cameras---with a real SHUTTER!!! none of this delay crap that the digitals all seem to have.==== i also got a Cross fountain pen===i have always loved those===and various and sundry items ====the girls are having fun and the ds got another game system so people seem fairly content---the zoo of a dinner went off well---my sister makes these potatoes that have tons of butter and cream cheese whipped into them ---they are amazing and probably "heart-attack on a plate"====i even put gravy on them just to make sure no blood gets through those arteries----BACK TO WORK TOMORROW---HOLY CRAP`~~!!!! peachers--get in here and tell us what is new in your world!!!

Hello! We seem to be surviving the weather... we've had ice, then we had to drive through a blizzard to get to the in-laws, where my poor doggies had to sleep in a cold room and I had to be subjected to... well, nevermind. Today, it's just rain. I'm home with my sweet kitty and my dogs are curled up on the nice warm waterbed, where they belong. I got two printers (one b&w laser, one color inkjet), candles, a cow-lendar, a cowie bank, candles, and jammies.

There are some people I did not send cards to because I do not have a current address. If you would like to get this year's card, and haven't, IM me your address. It has a picture! And I'm not one of those people who crosses people off my Christmas card list just because they don't send me one. Oh, no. Once you're on my list, you're there until you move and fail to give me a forwarding address.

Merry belated Christmas, cowsies. We've almost dug ourselves out of all the baby dolls and legos. We had Kayden on Christmas day and Alek too (DS's gf's 5 yr old) and baby Vince was dressed as Santa. Just my kids, their significant others and children. It was very nice to just hang out together. It actually snowed here on Christmas day, which I can only remember happening once before in my life. It was beautiful.

My DS gave me a wonderful new coffee maker and cologne. DD gave me new lovely feather pillows and beautiful framed pictures of Baby Vince and a family photo of DD, DSIL and baby.

I didn't get any cards sent out, but I dearly appreciate those I received. My counselor had me write a Christmas letter as a kind of therapy, but it wasn't really fit for general distribution. After reading it back to myself, I know I really am doing quite well considering the year I've had.

Thank you all for being such a supportive herd. It means so much to me. Blessings to you and your loved ones in the coming year.

Wabby, are you still at the same address? If so, I have a card for you. If not, could you pm or email your new address to me?

I'm so glad you had Kayden for Christmas day. What a wonderful gift!