Four Christmas's

I know it's been a while since I last blogged. I've been very busy with Christmas. It started on December 23 when Scott and I had Christmas with his mom and step-dad. We had them over and I cooked for them. We opened presents and discussed wedding details (the only thing I know how to talk about these days) The next day, Christmas Eve/Jake's b-day, I woke up bright and early to fix Christmas dinner for the whole Johnson family. His grandmother can't cook anymore because of her arthritis and I'm actually the only other woman in the family as grandma had 4 boys (bless her soul) and we only had our meal with 2 of them both of whom are not married. So instead of catering like usual, Scott nominated me to cook. No big deal since I love to cook, and I am very good at it (TOOT TOOT) but this meal was a bit of a challenge. The Johnson's are Swedish and they cook a traditional Swedish meal every Christmas. The only Swedish meal I've had is the frozen lean cuisine one so I had no idea what I was doing. Grandma gave me the recipes hand written by Grandpa's mother (which were hard to read because it was more like a letter than a recipe) and I tried to follow as best as I could. I was at a total disadvantage because 1. I've never eaten it before so I didn't know how it's supposed to taste 2. I didn't know what it was supposed to look like and 3. I don't know what Swedish food is.

At 2:00 I headed to Scott's dad's house to slave away. I had to make homemade Swedish meatballs made of ham, beef, and pork all mixed together. That was gross because we all know I don't touch raw meat so I had to put gloves on while I rolled the gozillion golf-sized ball meatballs. They actually tasted good but since I saw them raw I couldn't get past that so I only had one bite before I got grossed out thinking about all that raw ground up meat. The nastiest thing I've ever cooked in my life came next. Steamed sausage and fish!! Vomit. First of all, it smelled like....I don't even know what. Who boils fish and sausage? I threw up in my mouth a few times just looking at it.

The most exciting thing for Scott of the night was the 'dupa greda.' Dupa Greda is pretty much Wonder bread soaked in the juices left over from the beef and pork roast. I gaged when I saw Scott cut the soggy wonder bread with a fork and proceed to place it in his mouth because all it looked like to me was a giant booger dangling down. I decided after that vision that I would pass on the dupa greda. I'm not a picky eater but after reading the recipes, I figured I wouldn't find the Swedish meal as the best food in the world so I cooked a few normal Christmas dishes and filled my tummy up on those. It was SO MUCH work but Grandma and Grandpa loved it and were so grateful that I did it so that was rewarding enough.

At 12:30 in the morning, Scott and I packed our bags and drove to Little Rock. My family celebrates Christmas with a big breakfast then we open our presents, then the extended family comes over for a big dinner so we had to make sure we were there for breakfast. We got some great gifts! Mostly wedding registry stuff because that's what I requested but we were surprised when mom and dad got us a 19 inch flat screen TV with a DVD player in it for our bedroom. Very exciting. Our Christmas dinner was SO GOOD because my mom and Grammy are amazing cooks. After dinner, we all went to see Marley and Me. Oh my gosh. So good! Of course I embarrassed myself by how loud I was crying in the end but oh well. I would totally recommend seeing it. When we got in the car, Dad made us laugh by saying he needed to go see a killing movie now. I called tabs on hugging Holly first when we got home and she got lots of kisses from all of us.

Yesterday, we drove to El Dorado for the Luttrell Christmas. How neat it was when dad ran over a screw and the tire popped on the interstate. It was quite interesting to try and watch Scott, Kyle, and my Dad try and change a tire because none of them are handy men. It took us about an hour to get a ghetto tire on our front right wheel and roll down to El Do.

Today is my mom's birthday and I'm very proud of the gift I got her. It's a treasure and mom said it's the best gift she's ever gotten! I had a girl from El Dorado draw a portrait of Holly. Don't worry, I'm not betraying Jake....I asked him if he could and he said he didn't think he could draw Holly so I found her and she did it. It's so awesome and looks just like Holly. I'm very pleased.

So now that you're caught up with what I'm sure was a too detailed, boring blog, I'll let you go and talk to you soon!