The comfy Christmas/winter thread, A thread to share your Christmas recipes, experiences, etc Options

[mirocu]

Fine, I'll give you what you want


BLACKPINK - Last Christmas + Rudolf the red nosed raindeer (in Japanese!)

This post has been edited by mirocu: Dec 3 2022, 08:14 PM

[mirocu]

Just finished wrapping up a few gifts for Mom and Dad. Two of them made by me as per wish request


It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, guys!

[Acadian]

Pretty and relaxing!

[mirocu]

It's a good song


And here is this year's Christmas tree!


The presents underneath are to my parents

[Dark Reaper]

It's time for The Song!!!

[mirocu]

You mean this one, surely

[Decrepit]

Today, just after lunch, I composed / typed / printed the 2022 edition of my annual X'mas Holiday Season letter for the three olden-days acquaintances I still send conventional snail-mail to. Those letters now sit atop the bookcase a foot or so from my front door, ready for placement in my mailbox Monday morning. Not knowing if today's mail has been delivered yet, I could ahead stick 'em in the mailbox now and hope for the best. But it's been raining off and on all day. I don't want to risk them becoming waterlogged.

[Dark Reaper]

You mean this one, surely

Love that song and video!

[Decrepit]

A comfy Christmas narrative to warm the cockles of your heart.

This December marks 30 years of residence in my dump of a home. (it was every bit as dumpy 30 years ago, only with woefully inadequate furnace and A.C. units. This at least has been rectified.) But this is not what I intend to relate.

Three years ago a new Xmas tradition was initiated between a certain relative, who shall remain nameless, and myself. Said relative visits me not long after Thanksgiving. I quote a spending allowance. This nameless individual peruses Amazon until finding items-of-appeal within budget. I then order said items as "gifts", to be mailed to the recipient's address.

This was done early yesterday afternoon. Twenty or so minutes after the order was placed, my visitor departed.

Info-dump: My home is situated on a small lot (a few?), situated along a section of street subject to slow water drainage. There's not much of an upward slope twixt street and house. Nor is the house floor far above ground level. While it's never suffered from outright flooding, the yard can become thoroughly waterlogged during heavy and/or prolonged rains. Near the street it gets so mushy it's not safe to walk there. Case in point; while curbing garbage this past Thursday morning, my feet sank into the yard over my shoe tops. A real mess! It didn't do the lawn much good either.

My relative purchased a new vehicle last year or the year before. At that time it was announced that, during visits, said car would now be parked along the street, with one side on the lawn, to protect it from potential scratches from several bushes that abut my parking slab. I was and am okay with this, the one stipulation being that the parking slab MUST be used during wet weather, to protect the lawn. Barring this, a visit must be postponed / rescheduled.

We now return to the present.

Maybe two hours after yesterday's visit, I chanced to look out the living room window. There, before my very eyes, was a deep tire trench, extending the entire length of my yard! Now, under most circumstances, I'm a relatively mellow person. On those thankfully rare occasions my temper flairs, it's short-lived and not physically violent. The worst possible outcome is saying something tackless I later regret. However, one thing that really gets under my skin, and stays there, is for someone to put ruts in my yard.

Soon as I saw the trench, I saw red. I was thoroughly pissed. At both my visitor and myself. Knowing that the yard was waterlogged, why had I not reminded said person of the parking restriction pre-visit? Second thought, how the heck was I going to fix it? It seemed overkill to pay someone to haul in the relatively small amount of dirt needed to fill the trench. I certainly wasn't going to pay some laborer to fill it for me! Lowe's sells bags of potting soil, topsoil, and the like, but not heavy dirt, making a trip there pointless. Besides, I no longer trust myself to manhandle personhandle multiple 40-50lb bags of dirt/soil without suffering potential dire consequences.

This dilemma bugged me through the rest of the day and on into the night. In consequence, I got very little sleep. Waking one final time at around 0315, I gave it up as hopeless and left the sofa to begin my day, such as it promised to be. It must be added that, by now, I had fretted myself sick. Didn't feel well at all.

A thought came to me before 0500 breakfast. I've been thinking to edge the sidewalk for some time. Weather permitting, I could do so as soon as it became warm enough, using the removed grass and soil to fill a portion of trench. The downside? I own no edging apparatus, having to rely solely on muscle and an ancient shovel whose point had worn flat years ago. The upside? The lawn being quite wet, edging should be relatively easy compared to shoveling dry, hard dirt/grass. That was my hope, in any case.

Come 0700, I could wait no longer. It being in the low 40s (F), I dressed as follows: Thermal Underwear top and bottom, mid-half socks, ankle socks, jeans, hooded sweatshirt with hood up, neck wrap, heavy toboggan, military field jacket, heavy gloves, heavy rubber boots. Teeth and eyeglasses were left behind as inessential. I began to edge at roughly 0715.

It was slow going. I eventually admitted that it was more than my poor dull spade and its decrepit owner could handle. By then I'd loosely filled maybe six feet of trench. What to do about the rest? I then remembered that my parking slab tends to "silt up" during prolonged rains. It didn't look as if much silting had occurred. Still, I hoped to get another five or so feet of fill from it. To my great surprise, by the time silt ran dry I'd filled over three-fourths of the trench! How about the rest?

I reluctantly returned to edging. This again proved too stressful, netting only one additional shovel full of fill before throwing in the towel. One last idea came to me. What if the yard has crept over onto the parking slab on the side where I park my car? Turns out it had, quite a bit. What's more, edging there was super easy. The remaining unfilled portion of trench was filled in comparatively little time, lacking only a small section I decided is too shallow to be worth messing with. Success, and it didn't cost me a cent! I entered the house at 0945, back to my old mellow self, lawn damage forgiven, if not forgotten. You can bet I'll re-remind that visitor of my parking policy, now that I can do so in a calm, non-aggressive manner.

My one concern is that I may have overstressed myself. This was probably the most demanding and prolonged physical activity I've engaged in in years. Have I done myself harm? One thing for sure. Should I wake up dead tomorrow you can bet I'll think twice before tackling a project of this magnitude on my own in future.

This post has been edited by Decrepit: Dec 11 2022, 10:12 PM

[Acadian]

I totally hear you, Decrepit - very frustrating. And if you're like me you've found that age quite encourages 'fretting' over things. I'm glad that you were able to get those ruts fixed though - a pretty elegant solution.

[mirocu]

I apologize to all my fellow chorrolites for not posting this classic gem sooner


Mr Mochi's Holiday Special!

[Dark Reaper]

Well let's see next week, which is the week of Christmas. My sister and her husband have planned a funeral for her husband Dad who passed away from stomach cancer. I know my dad's going but I'm too sure as I'm still fighting an infection and going outside agitates my coughing. Hopefully I recover before the funeral but if not, I'll stay home and get plenty of rest.

[mirocu]

Merry Christmas Eve!

[mirocu]

Merry Christmas Day!

[Acadian]

Merry Christmas to Chorrol!

[macole]

A very HAPPY and MERRY holiday season to all!

[Decrepit]

Happy Holidays to all!!!!!!!!!!

[Jacki Dice]

Merry Christmas!

Ok imma share with yall some heaven I made last night. Arroz con dulce, which is like a rice pudding. It's a delicious part of a Puerto Rican Christmas Spread. You'll need:

🎁 Two cups of short grain rice
🎁 Five cans of coconut milk
🎁 One can sweetened condensed milk
🎁 One can evaporated milk
🎁 One cup Brown sugar
🎁 Raisins
🎁 Sliced ginger root
🎁 Cinnamon sticks
🎁 Cloves
🎁 Star anise
🎁 Allspice
🎁 Ground cinnamon
🎁 Vanilla extract
🎁 One can Coconut cream

Ok here's what you do.

1. In a mixing bowl, set the rice to soak in one can of coconut milk and a can of water for four hours. Also, put your raisins to soak in water next to the coconut milk/rice. I have seen people soak the raisins in rum instead of water, so if you like that, go ahead and do it that way.

2. In a small pot, boil the ginger, cinnamon sticks, cloves, star anise, and allspice. I used maybe like two cups of water?

3. In a separate pot (a big one) put in the four cans of coconut milk, evaporated milk, cinnamon, and brown sugar. Mix it well so it's more brownish.

4. Add your rice/milk mixture and the raisins and the vanilla.

5. Add the water from your boiled spices. It's gonna smell so good!

6. Add the coconut cream. You can also add fresh coconut.

Then enjoy! You can have it hot. I was very sleepy when I made it so I popped it in the fridge and had it for breakfast today. So good!

🇵🇷🇵🇷

[macole]

Merry Christmas!

Ok imma share with yall some heaven I made last night. Arroz con dulce, which is like a rice pudding.

Sounds good. I will give it a try.
Hope you have a merry Christmas season and a happy New Year.

[mirocu]

Lets get this party started!!