So, my usual Dec. 25th activity was getting together with my neighbor/close friend, after she’d done a shift as a nurse, for food and libations.

Except for one year, when her loony daughter’s baby-daddy was going out of town to his cousin’s without her, so I cooked dinner for loony daughter and baby. Except, baby-daddy’s cousin had a “hold my beer and watch this” moment a few days before Christmas and shot his buddy, so baby-daddy came to my house as well. Loony daughter and baby-daddy proceeded to get rip-roaring drunk and when my friend, the nurse, came home, she threw baby-daddy out of her house and I had to let him stay with me, because I feared he was far too drunk to drive.

Anyhoo—sadly, my friend died suddenly last year, right before Christmas, and loony daughter (who I adore, but she is not, shall we say, the most responsible person on earth) and her little girl moved into my friend’s place (baby-daddy and loony daughter are no longer together—thank dog.)

So, she asked me to spend Christmas with them this year, which, in actuality, involves going to her place at 7 pm, after they’ve gone wherever the hell they’re going before that (and, being the punctual person she is, will probably be more like 8:30 or 9:00.) She was going to cook a ham, which has now morphed into cranberry meatloaf?!

I am making wild mushroom bread pudding, and have made a strawberry layer cake that started out being a yule log, but I had grave concerns about my ability to roll it correctly, so went with a stacked cake with whipped cream frosting. It will taste great, but looks like my 8 year old nieces decorated it (if they didn’t live hundreds of miles away, I would definitely blame it on them.)

So, my question is this—is it January 2nd yet?