I Will Not Be Going To The Grocery Store Again Until Dec 26th At The Earliest

I have to say: if there's a more "Bah, humbug" kind of place in the world than the parking lots of major stores this time of year, I can't offhand think of where it might be.  Hell's fricking bells.  Went to pick up a few last things this afternoon and saw a bird flipped, refusal to let pedestrians cross, refusal to let people come out of parking spaces, and two people arguing over a cart, and that was just at the grocery store.  I think all the holiday spirit has been squeezed in miserly gray droplets out of everyone who was shopping today, maybe because of the reality of the looming two-day holiday deadline.  I did what I needed to do and got the hell out of that place as soon as I could.

The Girl was with me, and she wanted to stop for lunch on the way home.  In an attempt to be a good mother, I took her to Wendy's--her choice--and we ate.  She looked up from her burger at one point and commented how nice it was that it was just the two of us out together today!  Talk about a dose of perspective...would love to see the world through her eyes.  She apparently didn't notice the bad moods and craziness and anger all around us and was just happy for some one-on-one time with me, grouchy mother that I am.  

Got home and immediately started to cook, always something that soothes me.  I remember being in high school and my own mother going through the pre-holiday stress--although I didn't really understand it then--and her asking each of us what traditions were important to us so that she could make sure they were kept when the more extraneous sorts of things slid to the wayside.  Baking cookies with her was always the thing I associated most with holidays, so that was my choice.  My grandmother had a real old-fashioned pizzelle iron that none of the rest of us could really operate, but pizzelles are a traditional holiday cookie for us.  I received an electric pizzelle maker as a wedding gift and we use it every Christmas.  Usually Mom makes them, but this year it was my job--I made almond and lemon flavored ones today.  She also makes the traditional pinwheel cookies, but I just don't have the energy to try those this year.  She should be here to do it and she isn't: she's exactly where she needs to be and I support it a thousand percent, but her absence (and Dad's) sucks gigantic MFing rocks.

Anyway, today's cooking efforts yielded the pizzelles, a batch of soft pumpkin spice cookies, an apple strudel made with puff pastry dough (Thing One's request) and a large pot of my mother-in-law's gulaschsuppe, which we will eat with pretzel rolls for dinner.  Somehow the house still smells good with all of those aromas mixed together!  Tomorrow I start the pre-cooking for Tuesday's dinner--all the stuff I can do ahead of time like the orange-cranberry sauce and veggie prep and the baking of Dad's mother's famous chocolate pie--but today was all about the cookie plate.  I am choosing to do the things that make me happy, and having lots of pretty cookies on the plate at Christmas is important to me, dammit.

It is what it is.