Friday Five: Countdown to Christmas Edition

From Songbird at RevGalPals

It's true.

There are only five full days before Christmas Day, and whether you use them for shopping, wrapping, preaching, worshiping, singing or traveling or even wishing the whole darn thing were over last Tuesday, there's a good chance they will be busy ones.

So let's make this easy, if we can: tell us five things you need to accomplish before Christmas Eve.

So much of what I "need" to do is dependent on whether or not we get power back! So this is a mix of what I think I need to do, what I have to do, and what I want to do.

1. A must: Get clean sheets on the beds for my sons. The last time the beds were used, they were not stripped when the guest left --- one of the those things I was going to get to later. Since I can't use my washer I will have to trek them down to the laundramat sometime before Tuesday. I'm waiting til almost the last minute as I'm ever optimistic that maybe "today will be the day" the power returns. I guess I could go buy some new sheets, too.

2. A must if the party is still on: Make a dessert for a dinner party we're invited to on Saturday night. I have a no-bake dessert in mind, and I have the ingredients --- An Icebox Cake. You take chocolate wafers and whipped cream and assemble a cake with them and refrigerate for a few hours before serving. I'm planning to crush candy canes (the ones I bought for my students, but don't need now that there's no school til Jan. 5th) into the whipped cream. I also need to be sure I can find my hand-powered eggbeater to whip the cream. However, we're supposed to get 12 plus inches of snow tonight, and so many of us don't have power, that we might postpone the party.

3. Finish purchasing stocking stuffers for my sons' and husband's stockings.

4. Plan (and purchase) an alternate Christmas menu if we don't have power. It's kind of hard to cook a rib roast without an oven. Needless to say the Christmas baking is out.

5. Purchase and decorate a tree. No lights this year. Last year at this time I had pneumonia. My husband purchased the tree, but I never had the strength to do more than get the lights on it. This year, I plan to decorate, but have pretty much decided against putting the lights on it. Doesn't seem to make sense!!

6. I know we only needed 5 things: I need to find my Christmas spirit --- I was struggling even before the ice storm. I am not ready inside to celebrate the Gift that is given.