16 December 1999

I saw George C. Scott's version of A Christmas Carol last night. I'd forgotten how good it is. It would've been better if it hadn't been interspersed with commercials, and if each commercial break didn't have at least two repeated commercials. Through a two-hour show, I think I saw the commercial for Pillsbury crescent rolls about twelve times. And the number's only that low because during the second half, they started alternating it with the holiday sugar cookie commercial. Long breaks, not enough sponsors, not enough planning.

Nine days until Christmas! (I'm counting today, but not Christmas day.) Of course, Christmas Eve night will seem like about nine days, I'm sure.

I talked to my brother yesterday, and he told me that the current plan is that on Christmas Eve morning, we'll open his presents to us, and he'll open our presents to him - but the rest of the presents are waiting until Christmas morning. If our grandparents were staying through the New Year, then we might have made him wait, but they're not getting to town until late on the 23rd, John's leaving for Montana on the afternoon of the 24th (and won't that be a trip from hell, boys and girls?) and the grandparents are leaving the day before John gets back. So the only time we'll all be together is the morning of the 24th.

Oh, well. At least they didn't decide to move our Christmas celebration to Christmas Eve morning. As Matt says, Santa stops loving you if you open presents before Christmas.

I roasted a turkey yesterday - it turned out pretty well, though I think I should have basted it a little more often. I finally got my broiled turkey skin that I've been wanting since before Thanksgiving. And we had turkey and mashed potatoes and peas for dinner last night, and it was good.

We all have our foods that we simply can't get too much of. I could eat peanut butter or Chinese food every day for a month and not get tired of it. My father's the same way. There was a while a few years ago when I thought K.T. might drown in tomato soup, and the only thing keeping her afloat were bagels.

I think turkey is one of Matt's special foods. I made him a turkey sandwich for lunch today, at his request. Which is remarkable for two reasons: For one, we had turkey for dinner just last night, and two, Matt never bothers to request anything for lunch. The conversation is usually something like, "Do you want anything specific for lunch?" "Food."

So today I'm going to take my brother out to lunch, and then we're going to go back to my folks' house and make a batch of moon cookies so he can have some to take to Sam, and I can have a few to round out the goodie baskets I'm giving people. Somewhere in there, I want to do a little shopping - some gift certificates for a couple of people, a few things we need in the house, and something else I want to get for Matt if I can find it anywhere.

I thought I'd have the whole day to get all this done, because Matt was supposed to be on a trip to D.C. today and wouldn't get home until late. But they changed it on him, and he's not going to D.C. until tomorrow. So maybe I'll put off the shopping until then, I don't know.

Ah, well, I have a lot to do today, one way or another, so I'd better get going.