The day after Thanksgiving we put out a little bit of Christmas decorations such as Christmas tablecloths on both tables at Oliver's request. We had a toilet sitting in a box in our living room for 16 days. I told the kids that we wouldn't put up the tree and the rest of the decorations until the new toilet was installed because the guinea pig cage is usually located where we usually put the tree, and the toilet was sitting where I planned to put the guinea pig cage while the tree is upstairs. Ken came yesterday afternoon and installed our new toilet. The old one got clogged many times each week. I'm hoping that won't be the case with the new one. The old one also had a crack in the tank. If the new toilet works out well, we'll probably replace the upstairs toilets at some point in the future. In 2016 I really, really, really didn't want to decorate for Christmas in our house because I associated it so strongly with my mom. Each year since then I would have strong feelings of grief when putting up the tree and such, but each year it was less difficult for me emotionally to decorate for Christmas. Although I still miss my mom, I'm happy to say that I didn't feel any sadness when the kids and I put up the Christmas tree this year! Although I never took a year off from putting up a tree and decorating, last year I took the year off in terms of mailing out Christmas cards due to how I was feeling emotionally following the loss of my brother and then my job. Today was the first day we received Christmas cards in the mail, and I'm planning on putting our cards in the mail on Monday. I put the Christmas gifts under the tree this morning as all three kids said they had the self-control to not touch the gifts until we say it's time to open them.
Although many of our usual Christmas traditions can't happen this year, we did something new this year that I might continue in the future. Growing up we never had anything in a stocking. We've had stockings up each December for the past 20 years, but the stockings that Paul's Gram made are not strong and can't actually hold anything - for decoration only. So my kids aren't accustomed to getting things in a stocking on Christmas Day. Tomorrow is St. Nicholas Day, and one of the traditions is to put one shoe out the night before and the next morning the child will find fruit, candy, coins, or small toys in their shoe. I had fun shopping for a few little things to put in their shoes tonight - chewing gum, Christmas socks at the Dollar Tree (where everything truly is $1), and fingernail polish for Nadia. Most of the extra holidays we're celebrating this year in connection with our study of other countries and cultures I don't plan to celebrate again in the future, but since we don't do Christmas stockings I'm thinking maybe we'll keep doing the shoe tradition on the even of St. Nicholas Day in the future.
I have purchased quite a few ingredients over the past three months that I had never purchased before in my life. For example, we had tagliatelle with prosciutto for dinner today. I had never purchased either of those ingredients before. Today some of my purchases included ladyfingers, mascarpone cheese, golden syrup, gruyere cheese, and risotto, which were all first time purchases. Some ingredients I doubt I'll ever buy again such as capers, which I used when making chicken piccata a few days ago. According to Wegman's website, they had rose water and potato starch in stock, but I failed in my attempt to locate those two ingredients. I'm planning to substitute vanilla extract and corn starch respectively. I did end up placing an order for saffron threads through Amazon as it was cheaper there than at Wegman's or Walmart. I hope we LOVE the saffron buns next week as they will definitely be the most expensive bread I've ever made, lol. I will say that making SO many new recipes over the last 3 months (64 new recipes in the past three months) has led to the kids doing a better job with eating new foods, and we've found some that we like and want to eat again in the future.
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