We Ate the Roast Beast

Well, it was actually a duck, but as we watched How the Grinch Stole Christmas after our Christmas Eve dinner, this sounds better. This was a reprise of our post-Thanksgiving dinner: duck with honey-garlic-ginger marinade, mushrooms sauteed in Worcestershire sauce, stuffing, corn, and biscuits. Later, Lisa made whipped cream and we ate one of the spotted dicks we bought at Cost Plus a while back. It was overall an excellent meal, but we definitely had to take a long walk (down to the Fernley Nugget casino, then through the neighborhoods on the way back to look at the decorated houses), but that was okay, too. The nights have been less cold lately (still below freezing), and Lisa won $1.20 on the slot machine at the casino to boot.

This afternoon, we have a reservation at Orozko at the Sparks Nugget for Christmas dinner. Otherwise, I've been taking things easy for my holiday. Although my conscience is nagging away at me about not getting the SMOFCon videos posted. I have at least labeled what each of them is and have gotten rid of the bits and pieces of non-presentations. I'm considering simply posting the otherwise un-edited files (one per presentation) without trying to edit them or add titles. Given how awful the light was (kept low so people could use the data projector for presentations), I'm not sure it's necessarily worth trying to improve the videos.

A Kuma Bear Christmas

While we were out for our post-dinner walk around 6:30 last night, we walked by the nursery/gift shop on Main Street, and to our great surprise, they were still open. They even waved at us to come inside, so we did. As is regrettably the way with such gift shops, nearly everything there was Made in China, but in a back room we found some locally-made hand-knitted tiny little stocking caps. Lisa bought one as a Christmas present for travelswithkuma.

This afternoon, we opened our presents. I got Lisa some warm fur-lined slippers made in Canada, and got Kuma Bear a package of maple-smoked salmon, also from Canada. (We figure he'll share that we Lisa and me.) Kuma Bear gave me some new socks with fish on them. Lisa gave me a book about Robert Morris, the financier of the American Revolution. (That is of course in addition to the new luggage she bought me before SMOFCon that was very useful.)

All of us are pleased with our presents. And we do have a little living tree that Lisa will try to re-pot soon and see if we can keep growing for the next year.