Merry Christmas everybody! Right now, I’m sitting here feeling sorry for anybody who isn’t me. Last night, in an effort to minimize the cooking over the next couple of days, I whipped up another huge batch of Slopbucket; arguably the greatest and deadliest meal known to man (the recipe is in another post entitled “Adventures of a House-Husband: Home Cooking Edition”). It was, in a word, AWESOME!!!!! That knocking you heard last night? That was the sound of my arteries (and possibly my colon as well: there’s a LOT of Velveeta in this stuff), slamming shut and reverberating around the world. That weird and ominous thundery yet kinda gurgly noise you heard this morning?  It was probably just weird and ominous gurgly thunder (but there are a LOT of peppers and chili seasoning in this stuff too).

Even more awesome is the fact that there’s enough left over for supper tonight, and it just gets better with age, like wine, whisky, and my wife, the lovely and gustatorily adventurous Jess (although she’s still just 27, as far as I’m concerned). I haven’t looked forward to supper this much since . . . well, last night, I guess. Still, I’m really looking forward to it. A lot. You might want to sleep with your earplugs in though. But enough about that.

I decided to try something different this year; cooking dessert stuff. Every year, my wife, the ever-more-awesome and eternally lovely Jess, makes Christmas candy, primarily Buckeyes, Peanut Clusters, and what she calls Moose Balls (don’t knock ’em ’til you try ’em). They’re basically Buckeyes, only instead of peanut butter, it’s cream cheese and crushed Oreo cookies rolled into balls and dipped in chocolate. They’re awesome, and I love ’em, but I got to thinking that she might enjoy something new. Plus people keep posting videos of how to make all this stuff on the Facebook, and it looks so simple. Seriously, watch the videos: it’s almost like the stuff makes itself.

Chocolate Lasagna

I mean it combines two of my favorite meals; Chocolate and Lasagna. What could go wrong?

And then there was this: Cinnamon Roll French Toast Bake. The sweet-toothed and just plain sweet Jess loves her some Cinnamon Rolls. I figured she’d enjoy this for breakfast Christmas morning (Sorry, I can’t figure out how to link the video, but here’s one to the recipe).

The Chocolate Lasagna looked to be the most complex, so this morning, I started with that. It went pretty well, although the first step was to mix some stuff up and set it aside. I did that, but then it was really kind of unclear as to what to do with it. I also learned that using a mixer is a skill. A skill I do not possess, apparently. Those little whirligigs can really fling the heavy whipping cream. You’d think that something like that would come with some kind of cover, or they’d make mixing bowls with deeper sides, or something.

Fortunately, I had Dude, Mattie, and Molly, a highly efficient and enthusiastic cleanup crew. They had my back. And my chest and legs, as well as the walls, countertops, etc (yeah, it got a little freaky in the ol’ kitchen this morning). Anyway, I got everything mixed up and ready. I put down the first layer of Graham crackers, and started smearing the cream cheese mixture over it. Now in the video, it smeared right along, with no problem at all. Not in my kitchen though. In my kitchen, it was like trying to get rid of snot. That stuff stuck to everything, and wouldn’t spread out at all. I ended up with the Graham crackers piling up and shattering into pieces which I then had to try to put back into something resembling a layer, like a frustrating (but delicious) jigsaw puzzle.

Finally, I referred to the recipe. Yep, I was doing just what it said. Oh wait . . . remember that bowl of stuff I’d mixed up and then set aside? Yeah, neither did I. There was a sentence in the middle of a paragraph that said to “fold” it into the cream cheese mixture. Now, I don’t have any idea how to fold a liquid, so I “dumped” it in, mixed it up, and everything went fine after that. It really makes me wonder about who wrote that recipe though. I mean, you just don’t stick something like that in the middle of a paragraph. There should have been a separate step in there. Were they pressed for space? Were they limited to a certain number of steps? Or, were they just expecting the people who used that recipe to know what they were doing? If that was the case, then they were wrong. Very, very wrong.

At any rate, I got that done and put in the fridge, and tackled the Cinnamon Roll French Toast Bake. Now that one really looked easy. Twenty minutes later, I was still trying to get that first can of cinnamon rolls open. Poppin’ fresh, my ass. They might be fresh, but there was very little poppin’ going on. I’ll admit, I was a little worried. The instructions warned me to make sure I pointed the ends of the can away from myself to prevent injury. Apparently those things are under a lot of pressure. I could not get that thing open to save my life. I even read the instructions. They said, “Push spoon against seam. Unroll tube.” I tried a spoon. No luck. I tried a butter knife. Still no luck. Finally, I resorted to a steak knife. That did the trick. Apparently (happily) the Pillsbury people are laboring under an extreme misunderstanding about how much pressure that cardboard tube contains. There was no pop, not even when I stabbed it with the steak knife. A little oozing maybe, but certainly not the explosive blast I was led to expect. I’ve got to say, I felt a little silly (and kind of disappointed, too).

Anyway, I got it done, and both dishes turned out great. Well, at least they look great. We have yet to try them. Still, I’m feeling pretty optimistic about it.

Of course, Christmas isn’t just about food. It’s also about presents.

Now I don’t know about you, but in my family, traditionally, it’s the grandparents who give the worst gifts. Don’t get me wrong, when I was a kid, I always looked forward to going to my grandparent’s houses for Christmas, but it was because I looked forward to seeing them and all my cousins (plus, my Dad’s folks lived in Florida, and Pa had a huge collection of Louis L’amour and Max Brand westerns). It was not for the gifts, which were normally underwear and socks, or their equivalent.

Note: If you are one of my grandkids, you should stop reading now, unless you’re just into preemptive disappointment. Seriously. Plus, what are you doing reading this blog? I’m pretty sure there’s some at least mildly inappropriate stuff on here. There’s certainly supposed to be. Go read something good for you!!!!!

Now my wife, the cool and generous Jess, and I have always tried to get the grandkids something pretty cool for Christmas, but this year, I decided it was time to go traditional. I do, of course, remember the expected disappointment of opening deceptively festively wrapped packages of underwear and socks, so I decided to go a different route. We got them books. Now, when I was a kid, I would have been thrilled to get books (yes, I was a weird kid), but I’m not sure my grandkids will be equally excited. Still, they’re good books, and they’re smart kids, so who knows?

I got the oldest boy Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. It’s a great book, and full of stuff that he’s almost certainly not going to learn about in school. Plus, he’s gone with me to the Rez a few times now, and I feel like to understand the present situation out there, you have to have some understanding of the history.

I got the oldest girl My Name is Malala, the story of an Afghan girl, Malala Yousafzai, who was shot in the head for insisting on going to school, survived that to face her attackers, and won the Nobel Peace Prize by the age of 16. I figure in a world full of Kardashians, Britney Spears’es (she’s still a thing, right?), Miley Ray Cyrus’es and various other assorted females who seem to be mostly famous to for their ability to vibrate their posteriors faster than the speed of sound, as well as the scarcity of their clothes, she could do worse than learn about a girl only slightly older than herself who stands for something good, does it fearlessly (or maybe in spite of fear), and is trying to make the world a better place. I also figure that if nothing else, it would be good for her to learn that not all Muslims are psychopathically religious headcases who want to kill her.

Jess got the younger boy The Indian in the Cupboard. Hopefully, it will induce a love of reading like Jess and I have. I don’t think it’s particularly heavy or inspirational, but we both started out reading fantastic adventures, and we figure it’s a good way to get him started.

At the very least, it should be less disappointing than socks and underwear.

Of course, gifts aren’t even what Christmas is really about, they’re just symbolic.

The Real Meaning of Christmas

If you really want to know what Christmas is all about, you’re looking in the wrong place. This is a silly place (mostly), for silly ramblings. The real meaning of Christmas is beautiful, and deadly serious. Look around you. All those people of different races, creeds, colors, lifestyles, etc.? They’re what Christmas is all about. They’re why He came. Well, them, and you, and me (that’s what I believe. You, of course, are welcome to believe what you believe as well). If you need more information than that, go to church tonight.

At any rate, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy Hanukkah, and Happy Kwanzaa to all.