What a great week we've had.
On Christmas Eve Eve we streamed the Christmas Concert from Tenth Presbyterian Church into our living room. Maybe next year we'll pack up the troops and head down to Philadelphia to be there in person. But it was a wonderful treat to attend in our jammies. A great way to finish off the final Advent preparation for Christmas.
On Christmas Eve Day we decorated the tree and house. We had our main meal at noon - Filet Mignon (from our recently purchased side o' cow) with mashed potatoes and asparagus. Yum! Mark spend the afternoon and long evening at church, directing the music for the 4pm and 10pm services. The girls and I joined him for our lovely 7:30 service.
 |
| Christmas Eve Dinner |
 |
| Christmas Day Birthday Breakfast |
Here's a video:
And another. Zombie faces...
We spent the rest of the day at my mom's house. My mom and Doug, Alyssa and Chris, Nanny Henny and Nanny and Poppop Mike were there. I love being with my family. They are really great people. We were all lavished with gifts and love. (I don't think we will need to buy anything for a whole year!)
 |
| My mom made a fantastic Christmas feast. I supplied some appetizers. Here is a shot of my first attempt at veggie and fruit Christmas trees. |
(Check out this very cool yoga swing that my mom got us. The kids can use it and so can I!)
On the 26th we had "Christmas morning" with Mark's side of the family. His sister's family was in town for the day and we had a nice meal and exchanged gifts. Eleanor (Mika) is a wonderful hostess and cook. Lots of playing and resting...
The next day was a bit of a break from traditional Christmas festivities. We were visited this year by a Christmas Rooster. On Christmas morning I had awakened around 5:30am to get breakfast started. I heard a sound that I thought was a gust of wind. But after realizing it was happening about every 30 seconds, I stopped to listen harder and realized that it was a cock-a-doodle-do. Ohmygoodnessgracious. A couple weeks ago Mark had remarked how large "Chicken Dora" was and asked if she could be a rooster. All of the info online seemed to suggest that if she was a he then we would have heard it crow long ago. It's been so cold I haven't been outside to really study them much lately. It chose Christmas morning to make it's debut. I went out there and looked at it. It was certainly a rooster. The tail feathers and wattle looked different compared to the other barred-rock hen we have. We can't have a rooster in the middle of Langhorne borough!! It's a shame. I would love the option of hatching fertilized eggs. And I'm sort of sentimental about this one. This is the same chicken that I nursed back to health after we procured it from a dirty farm. (Here's a tip for any wanna-be chicken farmers out there - don't get pullets from just any backwater farm. They could have a diseases or mites that might infect the rest of your flock.) Anyway, it was covered with chicken mites and the two other chickens that came with it quickly died of the same thing. Gross. I itch just thinking about it. Anyway, I gave it dust baths in diatamatious earth a few times a week and kept it in quarantine under close surveillance until it was healthy and mite-free. It's a beautiful bird. Was. Now I'm sure it will be a delicious bird.
So, with Kevin's moral support we did the deed for the first time. It went very well. I was so glad to find this video online. This woman is just darling and she has a wonderful respect for the life that she is taking. Her way of slaughtering was very gentle. So, that's what we did. We watched the video and copied. Our butchering went pretty much the same way that you'll see if you get up the nerve to watch her video.
Here is a video of "Chicken Dora" saying goodbye (don't worry - you won't see it being harmed):
Once the hard part is done there is the plucking and eviscerating to consider. We all had quite an education! Thankfully, the same woman posted a second video which gives all of those instructions.
Here we are doing the plucking:
In the end we are left with a beautiful butchered chicken which doesn't look any different from a roaster you'd find in a grocery store. He'll go into the stock pot and make a delicious soup after rigor mortis goes away. Yeah, there's that. That part is a little unnerving. :) The 9 other chickens are starting to lay well even in the dark, cold winter, and they don't seem too lonely for Dora/Diego.
So this past week we've basically just been hanging out with family, doing a bit of killing on the side.
Mark's Mom said one of the best things about the Christmas season is the music. Oh, it's so true, Our family enjoyed singing together with Uncle Kevin and Mark's parents on several occasions. Adding harmony and often piano to a melody makes me happy. I like to joke that that is the real reason I married into the Shockey family - because I knew that I could go Christmas caroling pretty much anytime and "Happy Birthdays" wouldn't suck.
Lucy took some video footage while we were singing:
There are 12 presents under the tree, one for each day of Christmas. Yesterday they opened a game called "To Bethlehem" that we played as a family. Today they opened and watched "The Promise" DVD - it was surprisingly good, and a musical, which kept their attention. We'll keep it going all the way until Epiphany.
Happy New Year!
What are the odds that we got the SAME swing? Apparently very good :). Merry Christmas!
ReplyDeleteNo way! That's awesome. I was actually thought of your kids when I saw the yogapeutics video and how much they would love it. where will you hang it?
Delete