After Christmas, things slow down, and when things slow down, I often think that maybe I’ll find time to write.

So it was in the latter part of December, in a moment of grand enthusiasm that in retrospect can likely be attributed to Mr. Garner’s spiked eggnog, that I challenged myself to actually post something here on the blog, 12 days in a row.  Inspired, if overly ambitious, I planned several posts about our family Christmas and New Year celebration, and dubbed the effort a Twelve Days of Christmas series.  Alas, I didn’t quite succeed at posting everyday for 12 days, but it wasn’t for a lack of material.  I’m just not made for daily, or even regular, blogging.  I take comfort in the fact that the best writers of English prose, poetry and plays were never expected to produce daily, weekly, or regular output. Why should I, clearly not the best writer of English prose, poetry or plays expect such heroic measures of myself?

Seven months, and two seasons later, while the rest of the family struggled with flu-ishness on the Fourth, yes, of July, I spent some time cleaning out my phone and organizing my picture files.  I had over 1,100 pictures stored on my phone, some even from last year.  I tend to procrastinate about purging my plethora of nature photos from my phone, uh, camera, well, camera phone.  There were also over 30 videos of things like recital performances, birds flocking to our holly tree, baby ducklings, a dead cow nose skate in the surf at the beach, a few science experiments, American Heritage Girls reciting the Oath and Creed, and the occasional extremely silly video of The Daughter doing whatever silly thing seemed significant at the time. What is pertinent to this post entitled “Christmas Cooking Redux” is that I came across some fun photos from the holidays, including these of the kids in the kitchen together making lunch from the cookbooks Uncle Mark gave them for Christmas –  As With the Richest of Foods.  I had intended to post photos and never got back to it.  So, without further ado: 

Well, that’s what it says!

Yum! The beginnings of Meat Dumplings…

Making the sauce

Hmmm. More salt?

And the kitchen is a wreck.

Next up: Cheese Cake Bites

Meat Dumplings with tomato sauce and parmesan

Not the best picture, but they were gone when I went back for a better photo. 🙂

Fait accompli!

If you roll your mouse over the images, there are captions. 🙂  Thanks for stopping by to see what’s going on at the Garner’s!  You bless me.