The Christmas Eve Cha-Cha

Waiting for Santa

I got up to bake Christmas cookies around five this morning; by seven, my daughter was so eager to load them into cute red tins that one cookie leaped to the floor.
"Only one died, Mommy," she said.
"R.I.P. cookie, 2015-2015," intoned her brother.
She gave him a candy cane. It broke, so he gave it to their older brother, who crunched down on it, commenting: "I like my candy canes with a broken neck . . . just the way I like my brother."
Then in church, as I was singing "Gloooorrria, in excelsis deo!" my daughter asked if I were singing, "In egg-shells-is deo."
Nope.
 My husband's cooking the goose, the aroma of which is making my stomach rumble. Yum. Raisin-apple stuffing. Dumplings. Red wine.

Christmas Goose, Bavarian dumplings, red cabbage, gravy, gravy, gravy . . .

It won't be a silent night--it will be lovely. 
We were amused by some of our presents: a certain relative re-gifted a 2015 weekly planner with her name on it in gold leaf--which she'd magic-markered out. But it doesn't even have the last few weeks of December 2015 . . .