A post in which it is Christmas*

I had decided to bake Cole a chocolate pound cake for Christmas.  It's his favorite, Lisa hasn't tried to make one, and my recipe is better than Granny Brown's which is the one Mama uses when she makes him one.  Unfortunately making a cake required a trip to the grocery store for cream.  I picked up some other things while I was there (I've decided to make a big Christmas dinner for Tony and Rhonda later this week) and got back to the house only slightly damp and started on my cake, only to find I was out of cake flour.  Back to the store I went.  Thank goodness they were open today.

I popped my copy of Katie Perry The Movie: Part of Me (a Christmas gift from Russ) in the computer to keep me company, and started making a cake.  I had been very disappointed to miss the movie when it was in the theater.  Her concerts are such visual spectacle that I really wanted to see it on big screen.  The movie was surprisingly light on concert footage, and surprisingly heavy on personal angst, but was still enjoyable.  I got my cake in the oven, and sorted the gifts. 

One of the reasons I had to get the cake in the oven early was that my hair, which had been great up until a day or so ago, had suddenly become Who-hair, and I couldn't do a damn thing with it.  Russ was working today, surprisingly, and had told me he would work me in.  I needed to have the cake out of the oven so it could cool while I was at the shop.  That unexpectedly worked out perfectly.  He sent me a text just as the cake was coming out of the oven, and I had time to turn it out to cool before I left.  It looked great.

I went to the shop (still in the rain) and had my hair cut, then got gas on the way home since I had forgotten to do that yesterday.  I got in touch with Lisa, who told me she was running behind also (not a huge surprise, but it worked in my favor today), and that as long as I got there in time for church, the later I came the better.  That meant I didn't have to hurry, which suited me fine.

I signed online to check messages, and ended up getting sucked into the internet vortex.  I went to visit a buddy of mine for a bit - hey it's Christmas for me too, right?

Then I got home, got cleaned up, packed the car, and headed out.  It was lousy weather, but better than it had been this morning.  There was almost no one on the road, and the roads were drier than they would have been had I left earlier, so that all worked out fine.  I made record time to Lisa's, and got there in time to visit a little and try the pound cake (which was excellent, if I did make it) before it was time to get ready for church.

Sigh.  I wasn't thrilled about going to church.  Mother had informed me that I was going, which I wasn't happy about.  Plus by just telling me I was going, she was setting a dangerous precedent that I know Dad and Eve won't have any qualms about trying to use.  But it was Christmas, I didn't want to make a fuss, and I could probably use some church, I know.  Also, I found out that Mama was being confirmed as a member tonight, which basically left me no choice.  Plus, I figured with it being the Christmas service, usually that is more 'Church-lite'.  So I ironed my shirt like a good boy, got all dressed up, and off we went.

My spirits were not lifted when we got there and it was one of those new big mega-churches (in Chapin, who knew?), but again, it was one night.  The service started innocuously enough.  We had a seat saved up front because of Mom, which was nice.  The service wasn't packed too badly (as I had worried) because there were like four services for Christmas Eve.  We were at service #4.  There was a cute girl sitting in front of us who looked kind of like a lower-rent Renee Zellweger, and I amused myself by trying to figure out where her haircut had just missed the mark.  But she had on a very cute dress, although I didn't like her shoes.

They had a cute little girl sing to start the service, and we sang some hymns.  The choir director, I noted, took her job very seriously - moving her arms in a notably regimented and measured fashion which no one seemed to be following very well.  Then the pastor (who had come to speak to Mother when we came in) got up to preach.  Apparently, despite it's being the third time that day he had done the service either a) he wanted folks to feel they had gotten their money's worth; or b) he had decided to make an impression on the Christmas-and-Easter-only crowd; but his service was surprisingly adamant, emphatic, and protracted.  We were in the service overall for about an hour and twenty minutes. 

But eventually it was over.  We went back to the house and ate our potato soup, which had been simmering in the crock pot while we were at church, along with some nibbles.  I was delighted to find that Lisa had gotten me some eggnog, which I LOVE, but which I had been resisting all season.  Since no one else drinks it, I had the perfect reason to indulge.  I asked for them to go ahead and open their cookbooks tonight.  Mom really spent some time flipping through hers.  Cole like it, but I didn't get a big reaction.  I was glad I had kind of tempered my expectations.  He's not really demonstrative anyway, and that's really the kind of thing you appreciate more as you get older. 

Mom and Lisa wanted to stay up and talk, but after the long day I was pretty wiped out.  I had to beg off and go to bed.