Getting Ready for Christmas Day

Started off today with a run to Westmont for errands and this week's volunteering session at the Haddon Township Library. I went to Super Fresh first, since I would be going home via Newton River Park down the street. Picked up leeks and onions, both of which I forgot at the Acme. Also grabbed the good organic store brand peanut butter on sale. I've started using the good natural (non-mix type) and organic peanut butters in the last year because they taste so much better. I did have a jar of peanut butter in the pantry shelf, but I planned on doing peanut butter cookies when I got home and figured I'd use half the jar.

The Haddon Township Library was my next stop. They were finishing the kids' storybook hour when I came in, and there were plenty of kids' DVDs and books to return. I didn't take anything out myself. I don't know if I'll be able to get to the Haddon Township Library next week.

Headed for Dollar General after I left the library. Dollar General is the tiny dollar store next to the Westmont Acme. I browsed their Christmas decorations, but ultimately, I just ended up with what I came for, a shower curtain and cards for my mom and stepdad's anniversary (which is tomorrow) and my nephew Collyn's 1st birthday (which was last week - I really need to get his mother's new address in the Villas).

The day had started out cloudy, but by the time I was winding my way down the paths in Newton River Park, the sun had come out and it was in the lower 50s, warm for this time of year. In fact, I was wearing my big black winter coat and was really too warm!

My neighbor next-door who often helps me with my bike had something for me when I got in. My best friend Lauren sent me an "Edible Arrangement" of fruit and an adorable cinnamon-colored teddy bear as a Christmas present, and it was due to arrive today. This was the arrangement she sent me; other than it came in a blue mug instead of a green one, that's exactly what mine looked like. I actually liked the blue cup better, anyway. It looked very striking against the jewel-toned strawberries, pineapple, cantaloupe, honeydew, and grapes. The "leaves" were kale greens, which I ate with my tuna salad for lunch.

I quickly put up the new shower curtain after lunch, then spent the rest of the day working on baking projects. Did the Peanut Butter Cookies first. The first batch was a bit crumbly, but I added a tablespoon of water, and the rest were fine.

Started breadsticks for relatives while the cookies were chilling in the refrigerator. I wanted to do at least one yeast bread recipe, but after my Stollen didn't come out very well last year, I wanted to make something much less elaborate. I used a recipe for Olive Oil Rolls from The Italian Farmhouse Cookbook, and added some whole wheat flour to that. They came out nice and soft, but blander than I would have liked...which may not be a bad thing with said relative's delicate condition.

I edited this month's role play, which we finished yesterday, during and after the breadsticks were in the oven. I didn't get to making my dinner of salmon, broccoli, and leftover sweet potatoes until quarter after 7, and it was quarter after 8 before I made it in the shower. All of which means I'm now dead tired again.

Ran Christmas movies and specials while working on various baked goods. The only one I haven't mentioned here before is Mrs. Santa Claus, a 1996 TV movie vehicle for Angela Landsbury. Landsbury is the title character, who, feeling unappreciated by her more famous hubby, takes the sleigh to check out a new route on night a week before Christmas Eve. She finds herself having to make an emergency landing in New York City in 1910, and ends up helping a young Jewish suffragette get her point across to the women in her neighborhood, befriends an Irish child whose mother is still back in the Old World, incites a strike in a nasty toy sweat shop that uses child labor, and brings together several couples.

While generally a nice vehicle for Landsbury, the movie tries to cover waaaayyyy too many bases...and they're all cliches of the highest sort. Not to mention, the weightier themes of child labor and woman's rights issues tend to bog down what's really supposed to be a light holiday tale. The music by Jerry Herman (of Hello Dolly and Mame fame) is not some of his best, either.

On the other hand, Landsbury does some lovely numbers with the children and has great chemistry with Charles Durning (who plays Santa Claus) and the Irish girl. The cheer-up ditty with the Irish kid behind the vaudeville theater had little to do with the movie, but was a lot of fun to watch.

It's also interesting - and true to 1910 New York - to see other faiths represented so well in a Christmas movie. Several of the major characters were Jewish, including the suffragette. She makes jokes about a Jewish girl making Christmas speeches towards the end of the movie.