StewMama Says: Have a Holly Jolly Hodgepodge

'Twas the Hodgepodge before Christmas,

When friends far and near,

Come together at Joyce's

To share Christmas cheer.

(with apologies to Clement C. Moore)

1. Are you cooking Christmas dinner? How many will be round your table this year? What are we having?

Our Christmas dinner menu will be pretty much the same as our Thanksgiving dinner menu. Beef. Tenderloin that is. They like what they like. Why mess with a good thing? We will also fix biscuits and gravy a time or two while the kids are home. Another favorite.

2. What is one must-have Christmas cookie in your house?
I'm not sure we have a favorite Christmas cookie. The cookies the kids always wanted to leave out for Santa looked like this:

So I guess they would be considered the must-have Christmas cookies at our house! Santa does like them, you know.

3. Santa likes a glass of milk with his cookies. Do you? What kind of milk is on tap at your house-skim? almond? soy? full fat (Gasp!)

Most of the family drinks skim milk, but we still have some 2%ers as well. Granddaughter Haleigh drinks whole milk, so there are times that we have all three in the fridge.

4. Time magazine recently named their 'Person of the Year' for 2011. This is the person the editors believe had the greatest impact, for better or worse, in the past year. This year they chose 'The Protester'. Your thoughts? Who would you name Person of the Year for 2011?

I don't know about impact on the whole world, but for impact on our world, I'm choosing granddaughter Ella Kathryn, born in May 2011.

Photo by Sarah.

5. December 21st is National Flashlight Day... when was the last time you needed a flashlight and did you know right where to find one?

I needed a flashlight a couple weeks ago when the power went out. I always have a flashlight with me now, thanks to this little gadget. Very handy, and I find myself using it a lot.

6. candy canes...yum or yuck?

Most definitely yum....

followed by some of this...

and some of these. Peppermint is my favorite. :)

7. What Christmas carol lyric means the most to you?

One of our former pastors loved this carol, and it has become one of my favorites as well. I love the quiet reverence of the song, and the lyrics, especially the last verse:

What can I give him, poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb;
If I were a wise man, I would do my part;
What can I give him: give my heart.

In the Bleak Midwinter was a poem by Christina Rossetti written before 1872, and published posthumously in 1904. It became a Christmas carol in 1906, with music by Gustav Holst. (source)

8. Insert your own random thought here.

Cousins. Our family was blessed to have cousins living just down the road. Jennifer and Caroline grew up together. Laughed together, fussed together, played together, and shared together, almost like siblings.

Here they are celebrating Caroline's fourth birthday...