Ginger's Junket: It's the day after Christmas...

Christmas has come and gone in a flash. It seems to do that more and more as we get older, doesn't it?

We had a wonderful Christmas. We spent Christmas Eve afternoon with Mama and Daddy and enjoyed some yummy barbecue and teriyaki wings, pasta salad, Christmas cookies, Mama's faithful Martha Washington candy (that she has made every Christmas of my memory) and the oven-roasted pecans that she never fails to make for me. I made rum balls for the first time ever this year and they were such a hit, I had to make two batches to take to work! They were really, really good.

I'm finding that the older I get, the more nostalgic I get. I long for Christmases of years past when life was simple, times were hard but love was abundant. Things just aren't the same anymore. We're too busy, life is too fast and our loved ones are slipping away from us due to age, distance or hardheadedness. It's sad, really.

I took an extra day off today but Larry went back to work. I had plans to start to pack away Christmas but it's afternoon now and I still haven't started. I'm probably not going to. It'll keep. And in the meantime, I can enjoy our beautiful tree and eat a couple more Christmas cookies.

As far as gifts went, we pretty much racked up. Mama and Daddy had our stockings stuffed and we each got gift cards that will be very happily used! Larry and I had cheated so bad this month and had already opened up so much of our gifts to each other but we did save a few for Christmas. Eve. We so bad.

One of the big gifts we gave each other was hiring somebody to repair our hot tub! It's been down a long time and when we went to Helen in September and stayed in that cabin with a hot tub, we realized how much we missed ours. Larry found a guy who sold and serviced Leisure Bay spas exactly like ours for over ten years and we had him come from Alabama to fix ours. All that was wrong was the motor had died. That's it. No lightning strike, no power issue. Just a worn out motor. $447 later and it was right as rain. And we have really, really loved having it back!

Here are some pics from our Christmas at home.

Larry found a 1950's Pyrex warming plate for me. I didn't even know they existed! And he finally got me the 1950's yellow Pyrex Hostess bowl he's been eying for a year or so. I kept telling him it was too much, that they wanted waaaaay too much for that bowl. He got it anyway.

We're still playing Pokémon (when they make it interesting!) and he got me a Pikachu shirt and bank.

And a Robins AFB shirt in red that I can wear on Support The Troops Fridays!

We're replacing all of our cookware so we added these two pieces of All-Clad! I love to cook and I get really excited about new cookware! Ha!

This crazy amazing bird. We saw him at an antique store just before Christmas and I just loved him. But they wanted $125 for him and that was just insane. Larry went back later and made a deal and got him for me. His name is Elton. Look at that hat! You can't see them but he's got some kickin' boots on, too.

Larry got some Duluth Trading Company clothes and some Fox River Army boot socks, along with a new Bluetooth speaker, a cell phone mounting kit for his truck, some military patches to add to his office wall, some cologne and some beard balm.

I got him this, too. A FrostGuard to cover the windshield of his truck on cold nights. I keep my car in the garage but he has to scrape his windshield. Not no more!

Santa came to see our boys, too! Banjo's tree stump full of squeaky squirrels and Tabbie Hoffman's hamster that records what you say (or purr) and then repeats it back. And stockings full of toys and treats (and toothpaste!).