December 25th

 Is it Christmas in your home? Well then, Merry Christmas! Merry anyway, even if you're not a Santa/tree/manger/presents/Yule log/carols person. We all could use a huge dose of merry and bright!

Busy day here, at the farmette. Of course, animals need our care no matter what, so off I go, into a gray and too-warm December morning. This was not the year to give kids sleds! 

Christmas breakfast. Lovely, yummy, special.

(with cat, me at the camera)

(with me cat at the camera!)

And then I have to get at it: dinner is at the farmhouse tonight and we have to get it together. Priorities?  Ed cleans, I bake. I can't bring down presents until the house is vacuumed. (And here's a mental note for next year: no wish lists with huge items (in terms of physical size) allowed! The wrapping was monstrous and it took many trips just to carry the big boxes downstairs. Oh fine, I take it back: if Sandpiper wants big trucks and Snowdrop wants a squishy cat, and Sparrow wants whatever Snowdrop wants, so be it.) And the Yule log -- I have to bake it in the morning so that the filling (orange cream) can set before I frost it this afternoon.

Too, there is the matter of roasting chickens. I like the method suggested by J. Kenji-Lopez Alt. Problem is, for our dinner of seven, one chicken is too little, two are too much. I was hoping that the butcher would sell me half a bird, but he wouldn't so I'm stuck with two. Given that I want to spatchcock them, I need to figure out what pan could hold two butterflied birds and fit in the oven. That process is one huge pain: flatten the birds, nope, wont fit, scrub the useless pan, go on to the next. While the cats watch wistfully, hoping that those birds (4.5 lbs each) are for them.

That is my morning. And afternoon. And really, it's not hard. Past Christmases had even more meals and it had the tumult that comes with having young kids at your feet. This one is quiet (but for the music!) and productive!

Okay, Yule log done, despite warped pan and uneven oven. It always comes out just fine -- it may be fussy but it's easy to fix cracks and twists along the way.

Table set, potatoes peeled, beans trimmed, chickens seasoned. Let the roasting begin! 

And here they come!

Farmhouse gifts.

Farmhouse foods. Farmhouse fun. It's splendid to revel in this season of sharing.

Dinner. The chickens look great!

You have to admire the kids' stamina. They've been running on excitement turned to max power since wake up time this morning. I ask them to decorate the log with twigs, currants and raspberries. And powdered sugar. They are on it!

Merry and bright indeed!

With so much love on this beautiful day.