Mac N' Cheese and Turkey

My Christmas meal did NOT go as planned. It was supposed to be turkey, mashed potatos, gravy, stuffing, grean bean casserole, banana bread and cherry pie. It ended up being turkey, Mac N' Cheese, green bean something, water stuff that went by the name of gravy, banana bread and cherry pie. Let's just say I was happy it was only our family and we weren't entertaining anyone else.

Soooooooooo...this is what happened. My husband had bought one of those pre-cleaned, pre-cooked, bake-in-the-oven-bag with the pop-out thing turkey that came with it's own gravy packets. He was trying to help me out. The turkey I worked with from scratch for Thanksgiving turned out moister and better. The gravy packets tasted like water--not gravy--and yes, I double checked, and triple checked the packets to see if I was to do anything with them other than heat them up. Not doing that again!

Why the Mac N' Cheese and not the potatos? A half hour before the turkey was to be done, my husband went to peel the potatos and informed me they were all mushy and sprouting. Into the trash he threw them as he said when potatos sprout they have toxic properties. Huh?? I'll have to google that one. Not that I'd normally work with mushy potatos, but they were all we had at that point. I decided to rush to Walmart to see if they were open so I could buy potatos.
Nope. They weren't--and I wasn't the only one pulling up in a mad dash at their doors! Then I thought I'd stop next door at Bob Evans and see if I could actually buy mashed potatos. Nope. They were closed. So I went to the gas station...wondering if by some freak of nature they sold potatos. Nope. They didn't. But they did sell Mac N' Cheese and I needed some sort of filler! So I bought the Mac N' Cheese.
The kids were happier. David doesn't even like mashed potatos and they both love Mac N' Cheese so I guess that worked out for the best. Not trying to impress anyone else anyways.
As for the green bean casserole?? Well...I experimented and I didn't have the right ingredients to work with there either. 'nuff said about that one.
The cherry pie was good though. ;-P

Now that no one will be accepting any dinner invitations from me...moving on to the gifts of Christmas part...

I bought John the board game The Settlers of Catan. We had a lot of fun playing it later on Christmas day. It's not supposed to be for ages under 10, but I thought Angela did really well. Even David played, but lost interest half-way through the game. It wasn't entirely his fault as the game was dragging on due to "starts and stops" as I dealt with a grumpy, teething baby. At least, I think that's his problem. He was content to play with his house and road game pieces after that.

Angela got a Cinderella polly pocket set, the Little House on the Prairie book set, and an Etch and Sketch. David got an Etch and Sketch too, Trial and Triumph: Stories from Church History by Richard M. Hannula, and Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock. It is geared for elementary children and it's partly for his school as well. He was very happy with the books, as he likes reading about anything and everything. I also got him a Little Einsteins Rocket ship that can change into a Lunar Rover, Dune Buggy etc. and came with Leo. One can program it to do a figure 8, go left or right, zigzag and a couple other moves in whichever order one chooses and then hit the green "go" button and it does it.

Today, we bought them more gifts with the help of gift money from their grandparents. They each got their own tool belt, apron, hammer, hammer holder, and nails. They spent all afteroon and evening helping John build shelves in the basement. They did the actual hammering and were getting very good at it! They absolutely loved it and didn't want to quit at all! In fact, Angela was upset she had to take a break for her shower. Since they were such good little helpers, their dad took them out to McDonald's for a treat afterwards. :-) I'll be posting pics on Facebook of their tools later.

For Christmas Eve we went to a friends' house with their parents and some other friends. Since this is a somewhat public blog I'll just say we enjoyed ourselves and leave it at that. :-)

Hope everyone else had a great Christmas!