Holiday report, so far....

The Table

The Ham Master

My husband was here for the better part of six days, and I saw him off this afternoon, at around 3.

We had a wonderful Christmas holiday time together, and a really good visit.

The weather during the time of his stay showed him the full gamut! He arrived on the 23rd, which was literally a blizzard day. We got about 9 inches of snow, and his project for Christmas day was to go down to the lot and try to dig my car out of the space it was in.

He met a kind man in the parking lot, who helped him. Without that help, the car could not have been moved.
Imagine if it had just been me, by myself. I'd never have gotten the car out, and would not have made it to work on Friday! That would have resulted in lost holiday pay.

And yes, I AM a manager, but it doesn't matter. If you call in on the day after a holiday, you lose the wages for the holiday.

Christmas night, someone set their condo on fire, and the alarm went off while we were eating Christmas dinner, and the building filled up with putrid smoke.

THAT was lovely.

Fortunately, it was very minor, and there were no evacuations or injuries (we heard it was someone's kitchen).

We went out for a bit of a walk around the courtyard and building, and found everything covered with sheer ice!! It was very dangerous under foot.

The roads were covered with ice on Friday morning, too, so I called and got a ride with a co-worker.

Then, the weather changed COMPLETELY. The post-blizzard deep freeze and ice gave way to freakishly warm temperatures, and it all started to melt while I was at work on Friday.

The fog from the rising temperatures and melting snow was so thick that we put our errands off and stayed home on Friday night.

And, later that night? POURING rain and thunder storms!

The humidity on Saturday was so high that the moisture was condensing on the stairways in this building, and I fell down the stairs on my way out to do an errand.

I have emailed the management company, and they have not responded.

Fortunately, my injuries were minor. That's only because I fell on a three stair flight, not on one of the 10 stair flights.

My feet flew out from under me, and I crashed down on my right hip and elbow. The impact wrenched my shoulder and neck, and I also bumped my other elbow, both wrists, the middle of my back, and the back of my head.

I was not knocked out or anything, and nothing was broken. The wind was knocked out of me, and I was just bruised up a bit, and left with some pretty intense pain the next day.

Today, the only part that really hurts anymore is my hip, where I have a deep purple bruise that looks like the edge of a stair!

Christmas Eve was very different for us this year.

My family has some very firmly, deeply planted traditions about Christmas eve. I have written about this copiously in other blogs in the past, and do not wish to detail the traditions too much here.

Suffice to say that it has, mostly, to do with 2 specific foods.

It has also had to do, for over 50 years, with us gathering at "The House." This is the house my parents bought in 1953 or 54, and where we were raised. We three still own this house "in trust," but my brother and his wife and step kids live there.

My sister and I had never had Christmas Eve dinner anywhere else but there...in the house where we grew up...until this year. My brother had had it somewhere else once, MAYBE twice, depending on when our parents actually bought "The House."

Various reasons to change the venue came into play this year, and what ended up happening was that the ham and spoon bread, the two "necessaries," were prepared by me, IN MY HOME, where I hosted Christmas Eve dinner for the very first time.

I'd never hosted a holiday gathering for my family before--ever. Christmas Eve notwithstanding.
This has historically been because my homes have been too small, and I have never owned a dining room table, nor a table of any kind large enough for more than 4 people!

My sister came up with the idea to have it at my place this year because she was scheduled to host her in-laws' gathering, which brings close to 25 people into her house.

She didn't want to have to do both Christmas eve for us, and then Christmas day for them!

I do not blame her for that in the least!

Plus, my husband would be in town, and we had gotten married this year....and my place is on the market, and I hope to be moved before next Christmas. This was (hopefully, probably) my last chance, so to speak, to have everyone over.

The other reason is that my brother and sister in law, who actually LIVE in "The House." were to go to her family's Christmas eve this year.

The last time this happened, two years ago, the rest of us had Christmas Eve at "The House," while the people who actually occupy the house were somewhere else. It was just weird.

Then, last year, we were supposed to be all together at "The House," but my sister in law and her kids left, without saying anything, and went to her family gathering anyway.
That struck my sister and me as odd, and it made the idea of being there alone again this year all the more awkward.

SO....we changed venues.

None of us was terribly HAPPY about it, and it felt really strange, but it went really, really well. My brother and I spoke about the oddness of it on the phone, and I became very emotional. It just didn't seem right that a ham was not cooking IN THAT HOUSE on December 24th.

But, be that as it may, we had made the decision, and it would be FINE. What matters, above all, is that we HAVE the special foods, and, that as many of us as possible share those foods together on that night.

So, my brother had ordered the traditional dry cured Virginia ham, and he had his son bring it, and all of the necessary tools, over to me.

Dave and I cleaned my place, and we "winged it" with an improvised table in the dining room.

I have a small oval shaped kitchen table, and an antique "gate leg" table. We moved my massage table out of the way, and used the dining room as a...well...dining room! We unfolded the gate leg half way, and set it at the end of the oval table, and voila!

The table cloth my brother had sent, for my sister to borrow, worked on my improvised table, too!

My sister had sent over our maternal Grandma's china and silver, as well, when my brother in law had picked up my husband from the airport.

I used some of my old decorations, that were my Grandma's, too, as a center piece. It was simple, but it looked quite nice!

Everything came out perfectly, and the only disappointment (which was, actually, pretty major) in the whole thing was that my brother was never able to make it over to smell the ham cooking, and to visit with my husband.

His driveway at home was so heavily snowed in that it took him hours to dig it out, and then the car wouldn't start.

We sent the big ham cooking pan, and the platter, and the tools, and a huge portion of the ham, and a little glass jar of cognac, home to my brother, via his son.

We saved a big portion of ham, enough for breakfast on Christmas day (with southern style biscuits and honey), and enough to make 2 batches of soup.

I also saved all of the bones. I traditionally make black eye pea and Virginia ham soup for my New Year's Eve gatherings.

Dave managed to handle the ham single handed. He became a new family hero, as, usually, getting the ham out of the giant pan full of water is a two to three man ordeal!

My idea was to use something to "bail" the majority of the cooking water out of the pan, into a waiting receptacle.

This worked wonders, and D was able to remove the ham to the platter by himself. So, I guess we were a good team in ham management!

(said receptacle was a big plastic cat litter tub my sister had brought, since I had no place to just take the pan and dump it, like we do in the back yard of "The House!" The menfolk later took the litter tub full of hot, greasy, salty water down to the dumpster behind the tennis courts!)

I taught D how to cut off the fat and skin, and he carved the meat, without any guidance, in neat, thin slices.
It was absolutely delicious.

We made my ham bone broth over the weekend, and I made my famous/infamous black eye pea and ham soup on Sunday, so that D could have some.

The rest is frozen, in anticipation of my annual New Year's Eve party. My impending guests insisted that I have a party this year, when I had begun to make noises that I didn't want to proceed with it.... so that they can have this soup again.

It's really, REALLY good! If I do say so myself. And, I do.

And, tonight, I sleep along agian, and... Tomorrow? Back to work.

Blah.