I hope you had a happy new years celebration. It was a rather quiet affair at our house, but we prefer it that way. In the last days of 2014 we did a bit of house cleaning. On Monday we took down all our Christmas decorations. The poor tree, once so beautiful, is sitting forlornly out in the yard awaiting its immolation some dry spring day. On Tuesday I finally got around to painting the upstairs bathroom. It’s a small bathroom and I thought it would only take me an hour or two, but it ended up taking me all day. It’s nice to have it looking so bright and white.
New Years, like most holidays at our house, was all about food. This year our New Years Eve celebration was the usual eclectic mix of food from Italy, Mexico, Japan, and America, and games, and lots of music by Strauss. This year the Italian food was represented by mini pizza hors d’oeuvres (delivered to us accidentally by the Schwanns man). The Mexican food was my wife’s wonderful Seven Layer Dip, this year reduced to just the four best layers – refried beans, guacamole, sour cream, and cheese. She left off the olives (she’s the only one that likes them), the chopped tomatoes (Daniel, Josiah, and I don’t like them), and the chopped onions (Hannah, Daniel, and Josiah don’t like them).
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| Playing games on New Years Eve. |
We always have Japanese food in honor of the years I spent in Japan on my mission. New Years Day (O-ShÅgatsu) is one of the biggest holidays of the year in Japan. This year I made my usual okonomiyaki (a pancake made with shredded cabbage and pork), and we also had gyoza (spicy potstickers, ordered from the Schwanns man). I also made mochi, a sweet, chewy rice cake. Daniel wanted to make sushi, so we went to our local health food store and got the ingredients and made vegetable sushi.
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| Daniel making sushi. |
I also made our usual cheese ball, which we ate with crackers. We had our traditional sherbet punch, this year made with raspberry sherbet. And we had our traditional little smokie sausages cooked in a sauce of grape jelly and mustard. It was all so delicious, but we realized right away that we’d made way too much food for just the five of us. We had lots of leftovers.
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| Our New Years Eve spread. |
We always listen to Strauss (Johann Sr. and Jr., not Richard) at New Years. Many years ago I went through a binge of reading books about or set in Fin de Siecle Vienna. Since then I have dreamed of being in Vienna at New Years in that fascinating and elegant era. So we listen to Strauss.
On New Years Day we had our traditional dinner of pork and sauerkraut, mashed potatoes, and rolls. Right after dinner, Stacey and Hannah left for the airport. Hannah flew to Tennessee to be with Rachel when she has her baby. Hannah will be gone most of the month. Stacey flew to Arizona to attend the wedding of our niece Melissa who was married in the Gilbert, Arizona Temple yesterday. Stacey will be home on Tuesday.
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| Pork and sauerkraut on New Years Day. |
So here we just four days into a new year. The weather was very cold and a little snowy for most of the week. Yesterday we had freezing rain that coated everything in ice. During the night it changed to regular rain. Today it feels like spring – 50° and rainy. The snow is gone, for now. Unfortunately, that will change drastically over the next few hours. Tonight we’ll be back to winter with temperatures in the low teens.
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| It doesn't look much like January here. |
We’re managing fairly well, just the three men of the house. We’ve reached the end of the leftovers. Daniel is trying to make pizza for our dinner today. Somehow it doesn’t look quite the same as when Hannah makes it. Daniel has some of his old high school friends coming over this evening (the Nerd Herd). Then tomorrow it’s back to school and a return to our scheduled life. The holidays are over.
