Soul Train for Christmas

I hope my regular readers had a wonderful Christmas. Mine was great, but this whole year has been amazing. It has seriously been the best year of my life, and I’m going to have some trouble saying goodbye to 2014. Travalon and I spent our first Christmas Eve together, and as my regular readers know, mine are usually crazy, while he is used to kicking back and relaxing. So we compromised: we ran around getting supplies for the cassata and eggnog, then I made the cassata. My choir put on a half-hour carol sing before “midnight Mass” at 5 pm, and I had a two-line solo. After Mass Travalon, Richard Bonomo, Kathbert, Luxuli, and I went to visit our former organist, who had the flu so we all had to don masks. The most romantic part of the evening was when Travalon and I went to dinner at Lilliana’s, where we had pumpkin soup and salad with gingerbread in it. He had steak and lobster for dinner, while I had turkey stuffed with goat cheese, cranberries, and spinach. For dessert we had pumpkin cheesecake. It was one of the most amazing meals I’ve ever had. After we got home, we exchanged presents, and he gave me a Soul Train DVD, an iTunes card, Lady and the Tramp stuffed animals, and a mug of Grumpy Cat saying, “There isn’t enough coffee in the world to make me rise and shine.” I gave him a coffee table book on the history of DC Comics.

Christmas morning we went to Mass again (and heard the same homily from the night before), then we drove to the Five O’s to have lunch with Travalon’s family. We gave his mother a blue sparkly poinsettia, and he gave the 42^nd Doctor a book about Darth Vader. For dessert there was homemade strudel, as well as our contribution – cheesecake. Then in the evening we went to Rich’s house, where the main course was lasagna. Cecil Markovitch made an amazing Turkish vegetable stew that everyone loved, and I always enjoy the positive reception to my cassata and eggnog. Cecil helped separate eggs for the eggnog, and he is really good at it! We couldn’t stay too late because we all had to work the next day.

Friday I had promised Travalon a quiet night at home, so we put on the Soul Train DVD and danced around to it. I had also promised him we could just be lazy around the house on Saturday, as long as I could go to the Lutheran Third Day of Christmas Carol Sing. He agreed, having two basketball games he wanted to attend that evening. So he dropped me off at Rich’s house and went to watch basketball, while Kathbert, OK Cap, and I figured out how to cook up a “mess of greens” I had bought for hardly anything at the grocery store. We aren’t even sure what they were – either collard greens, turnip greens, or mustard greens. We ended up cooking them with butter, garlic, and onions. Luxuli and Rich also joined us for leftover lasagna, then we all drove in Rich’s new Jeep to the Lutheran church for the carol sing, where we joined Cecil Markovitch. Afterwards my OTHER choir director invited us over for some leftover fruit soup, and then we all went back to Rich’s for leftover eggnog and the cookies Anna Banana II had sent in the mail. Travalon, Catzookz, and Twins Fan joined us as well, so we were there kind of late.

Yesterday Travalon and I overslept, but we couldn’t go to a later morning Mass because we were treating OK Cap to brunch at the Nau-Ti-Gal for her birthday. It was a big one – 29! Ha, just kidding, but if you want to know how old she is, you’ll have to ask her yourself; I will not reveal another lady’s age on this blog. I said we would have to go to Mass at 5:00, but that would be right in the middle of the Packer game, so Travalon called and got our TV hooked up so we can record shows. Rich joined us for brunch as well, and it was quite a feast. Before the game Travalon and I took Rodney to the dog park, then we watched the first half of the game, went to Mass, and turned on the radio to hear what we had missed. And guess what? They were beating the Lions 28-14! We drove to the Free House to meet OK Cap and Jilly Moose for a birthday drink, and in the end the Pack won 30-20, so they are the NFC North champions for the fourth straight year. More good news: today we found out Ndamukong Suh got suspended from next week’s playoff game for stepping on Aaron Rodgers while he was down on the ground. Awesome! There was no penalty called during the game, so we wondered if he was just going to get away with it. He’s a notoriously dirty player.

Famous Hat