Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, dear readers! 

We stuck close to home the last couple of days. 

Christmas Eve I spent the morning doing a bit of food prep. The only two things I took pictures of were the two cheeseballs I made. 

This one I started off with a recipe from Almanac. I was a bit disappointed with it.  Don't get me wrong, it tasted just fine.  However, one of the groups at our local Cathedral church makes cheeseballs every year for a fundraiser and they are SO good. I know some of the ingredients that are used for the cheeseball.  I'm going to try and make one.  Wish me luck. 

The other cheeseball I made was a dessert cheeseball, that I made with my own inspiration, no recipe. 

This one was a HUGE hit with my husband.  I tried to replicate the flavor of the cranberry-covered goat cheese logs from Aldi.   I done did good. 

For the main meal we had a gorgeous prime rib roast. 

We went hunting in the afternoon. The neighbors started shooting firearms again.  Incredibly frustrating. This time around the shooting sounded further away. 

Oh! Sunday I did watch some Christmas movies. My friend Becky was talking about Christmas movies on a recent blog post and I got to thinking that I should probably watch a few. 

While I was doing food prep I watched Christmas at PeeWee's Play house. 

Then later on I watched A Muppet Family Christmas. 

What a throwback watching this movie was.  It included the commercials from the year 1987. 

Today was a quiet day.  Woke up to more rain.  Did I mention the rain we had yesterday?  Yup.  Rain. 

Then more rain today. 

Today our big meal was beef tenderloin steaks.  Yum! And then the boys had crab legs (surf and turf) 

This is one of the crab leg clusters. 

What did we have on the television while we were prepping this meal and eating? 

Why MXC of course.  Nothing screams Christmas quite like this show. 

I watched a bit of A Christmas Story while knitting a few rows on my Harvest Cardigan before we ate.

If you couldn't tell, I completely forgot about a Christmas Day cast on. As much as I try to remember these sorts of things, I more often than not forget about them.  So, for now until maybe New Year's Eve, I'll just keep working on my cardigan and other current WIPs I have. 

Or, maybe I'm in the minority of my knitting/stitching/crafting circle. Does anyone do Christmas or New Year's Eve cast ons? 

A little bit later I was watching the Muppets Christmas Carol.  My first time seeing it.  They have a different spin on the story.  I haven't finished the movie yet. Don't tell me how it ends. *wink* 

I told my husband the rats in this movie reminds me of the creatures that hang on Jabba the Hut in the Star Wars movies. He agreed.  Even the noises the rats make are similar to what the other creatures make. 

This afternoon we went out hunting again. No random shooting from the neighbors this time. 

ANNNNNDD I had a bit of action. 

A small doe showed up.  She was super skittish and left within a few seconds after this girl showed up. Then this gal left after a moment. 

It was the first deer I've seen in almost two months. 

So that was exciting. 

Then close to shooting hours ending I got a text from my hubby, saying he was packing up.  I wrote back, saying "okay" and started packing up myself. 

Then I looked out the window and went "Sh*t!" and quickly sent a text saying "Deer!" 

I quick looked through my scope and through my binoculars.  Another doe. Possibly one of the "babies" we said we were going to pass on.  I confirmed it was not a buck. Also, you see that ribbon?  I have that. ribbon to help me know if the deer is big enough to harvest. 

I got to sit for a few moments and watch her guard the pile from another deer.  Then she ate for a few moments and then disappeared.  A moment or two later my husband was there, waiting for me to leave the blind so we could go back to the house.  

This evening we opened gifts and my husband was happily surprised by the gift from our son, and my son was really surprised by the gifts we gave him. I already received my gifts from my husband (the yarn) and my son ordered my gift but it won't be here for a few weeks. My guess is that it's something garden-related. 

Speaking of gardening ... now I can officially start thinking about all things gardening-related, if I haven't mentioned it already. Yay! I need to pull out my binder that I started this year, and I'm taking notes from some of the things shared from Kristin at Shifting Roots.