The Holiday Thread 2011

[SaabKen]

I don't think this Christmas will feel festive for me now. My ATF car company is now defunct.

[tunnanxwd]

Tunnan on Rye, or Ken's chestnut's roasting on an open fire.

Bah! Humbug.

And my mech just got done driving my car and told me it's "peppy" but he expected fast.

The good news was that someone posted that GM will honor the warranty if Saab won't if you bought the car from them.

So bend over for your Christmas Goose. Rant off.

"Peppy" can I get my screen name changed to "Peppy" ?>riero#@ That pissed me off and usually I try to deal with shizz with humor but how do you deal with "Peppy".

[THEOLDMAN]

We're going to have our son and granddaughter over on Christmas eve, after a dinner of filet mignon we'll open the family presents. Our granddaughter will be with her mother on Christmas day, so she doesn't get to go to my wife's family up north this year.


On another note my 9-5 wagon has become the nightmare before Christmas...big oil leak...

[SpecialTool]

Merry Christmas all. A lovely 31C (88F) day today with not a cloud in the sky. Last Xmas was stinkin hot so today is a nice change, especially as we are hosting my wife's extended family (40-odd people) so outdoors will be needed!

[Shazam]

That doesn't classify as hot? That is pretty darn hot here.

Today was bouncing between 20F and 30F (-7C, -1C). Met up with a couple friends at the local Sportman's Club to shoot some paper targets down range. A friend brought his AK-47, so I got to shoot a couple shots of that. After that I cleaned myself up and started on the Xmas eve activities. Trimmed, cleaned and butterflied a beef loin that was made for dinner. Cleaned up the house, and helped with dinner. It was just my close family (parents and brothers) for the first time in years. Normally close family friends are there. It was a bit different, but it was nice to have a slower, quieter and less formal Xmas eve for a change. Then came present opening which has been a family thing; apparently it's the German way, but who knows. Finished off the night with some dessert, followed by dishes and other clean up.

Tomorrow starts off pretty early. Headed to spend Christmas day with the extended family as always. It's about a 2.5 hour drive, but it's to a place where I think I have only ever seen a Saab once in my entire life. I usually travel there about 3 or 4 times a year too.

I hope everyone else was able to enjoy their Xmas eve, and have a Merry Christmas or whatever holiday you celebrate!

[tunnanxwd]

Started last night with a nice huge rack of roast pork in traditional Norwegian style along side a pile of preserved and pickled beets. Today will be some kind of jellified cod fish in the Norsk tradition along with a ham soup which I think is just to give "The Outlander" (aka me), something to eat.

This is in direct contrast to my Polish side that got the "meal of suffering" out of the way on Christmas Eve. This was a meatless affair that featured a dish made from aged mushrooms that were grown in a cave on moldy sweatsocks from some Prussian training camps locker room. Actually there were a lot of great dishes like a noodles in sour cream with a dash of sweet cabbage, golobki (cheese and potato ravioli), that I loved.

Last years traditional "Fish Balls" of Scandinavian Christmas are just a memory and this years "Jelled Cod" has me on the edge of my .... Merry Christmas ..

There has been no mention of "Lutafisk" yet.

Yet.

[Hirsch]

My brother came over last night and I cooked up a whole beef tenderloin for dinner along with my wifes' garlic mashed potato's and assorted green stuff. It was a wonderful meal.

The girls were up at 6:30 this morning, when they saw the lights on the tree were on they ran into bedroom, dog right behind them and all 3 of them jumped on the bed.

The girls were happy with their haul of gifts, Karina got me a Keurig single cup coffee maker. I got her a nice office chair for her desk and computer.

Today I've been grazing on the leftover tenderloin and laying around.

[SaabKen]

Kiddo woke up and came into our room at 1:30am, asking if Santa arrived yet. So I walk him out to the living room, checked under the tree and [gasp], lo and behold, there were 4-5 new wrapped presents under the tree he hadn't seen before going to bed (I planted those presents there after he gone to bed). Then of course I put him back to sleep, but I couldn't fall back to sleep myself until 4:30am or so

Tonight (in about 2 hrs) my folks will be over for Xmas dinner, it'll be just five of us this year, minus the relatives, cousins, etc. Got a 6-lb ham being baked right now, it'll be glazed with a honey/maple syrup/brown sugar glaze. All to be accompanied by a wild rice pilaf tossed with toasted almonds, walnuts, diced celery/carrots/onion and lotsa buttah. Also with two sides of shredded beets and sauerkraut. Wife is making a bread pudding she claims to her Heinz 57 (Scot-Engl) heritage. M & D are bringing over some veggies.

[SpecialTool]

Started last night with a nice huge rack of roast pork in traditional Norwegian style along side a pile of preserved and pickled beets.

My paternal grandfather is Norwegian. He was a sailor who jumped ship in Sydney as a young man (running from what I wonder?). Wish I knew more about my Norwegian heritage. I even don't have his surname (Werring) as my grandmother remarried and Dad took his stepfather's surname.

[SpecialTool]

47 for Christmas lunch! Went off without a hitch.