We had driven down to Dover Thursday Christmas Eve day to drop off Mia's gifts as we are continuing to isolate out of concern for the covid-19 situation. I missed seeing Mia because she was still on a sleepover at her grandmother's house. Marissa said that we could do a video conference later that afternoon when Mia would be opening her presents.

Sue and I sat in the living room with a nice warming fire in the wood stove Christmas eve afternoon watching the classic movie, It's A Wonderful Life until around 5 pm when Marissa gave us a video call on Duo. We had a great time watching Mia open her presents from us. Sue had found the cutest kids pottery wheel for Mia, but Mia had no clue as to what it was when she opened it up. She and Marissa will have a great time with it once all the excitement of the holidays have passed.

We woke up Christmas day to dense fog, and rain, but still 6 to 8 inches of snow remained. Very New England....

Sue fixed up a marvelous breakfast of scrambled eggs mixed with avocado, black beans, cilantro, and salsa. We took that into the living room, and started watching the 1977 Ed Asner and Maureen Stapleton movie The Gathering. The movie just struck a chord with me, and it's become a tradition for me as I've watched it sometime between Thanksgiving and Christmas now every year since it came out.

Sue had a great video chat with Jill in the morning. They got to show one another the gifts they'd bought each other. Jill was in isolation recovering from covid-19 she'd contracted at work, otherwise we'd have been able to get together with her in person. Living out in Pasadena, CA, Lucas has basically been in lock down for quite awhile, and so it was great that Sue was able to enjoy a nice long chat with him on Christmas Eve.

While we missed being with our families for Christmas, it was wonderful to at least know that everyone was safe.

Not long after getting off the phone with Jill, Sue called to chat with her brother Alan. While she was on the phone with him, I headed into the kitchen just after 1:00 pm to start dinner prep. Sue and I had wanted to keep it simple, and she had found an interesting pot roast recipe. Since it would take over 3 hours to cook in the oven, and there was a lot of prep work to do, I had to get on with it!

After I got the onions cut into pieces, I got them browning on the stove in the oven pot. Next up was the carrots. Got them skinned and cut up just as the onions were finished. Pulled the onions out, and then browned up the carrots. Same process with the mushrooms. Then, had to brown up the chuck roast itself, and that was interesting.....

Anyway, just after 2:00 pm I dumped all of the browned veggies into the pot with the roast, added sprigs of rosemary and thyme, poured a cup of red wine, and several cups of beef broth over everything, and stuck it into a 275 degree oven to cook for 3 hours. Man, did that smell great all afternoon!

I opened a bottle of Josh Legacy Red Blend around 3:30 pm to enjoy with a nice fire going in the wood stove while we played some backgammon until it was time for Sue to get the mashed potatoes ready.

We sat down to eat around 5:30. Because it was sort of a heavy meal, we had wanted to eat early, and then ease into the night with a movie.

It was a good day for us, and we send our thoughts out to those who are either sick, or who are unable to be with their loved ones.

Mia Christmas Eve day.

Mia opening the kids pottery wheel that Sue had found for her. You can tell from her expression that she has no clue as to what this is....

Sue took this Christmas Eve picture through the window from outside.

Dense fog greeted us Christmas Day. Temps have been as high as the low 50s the last couple of days. That 'warmth' with the constant rain has dropped the snow depths to probably 8 inches in most of the yard. You can see down to the grass in some places where I had shoveled paths back to the generator and propane tanks. Still a lot of snow down....

Sue out in the rain with her reindeer glasses on, with a smile and wave with a sign she wrote to her kids Jill and Lucas that says, 'I Love You'.

Of course she had to get Beau in the act as well, though he was not fond of the reindeer glasses Sue tried to put on him.

But he got over it when she headed him off toward the woods for a walk. He absolutely loves to roll around on his back in the snow. He can be quite the clown, ignoring anything you have to say while he's wiggling himself around in a snow bank.

With reindeer glasses on, Sue starts work on breakfast preparation.

Breakfast in the living room watching the movie The Gathering.

And before we knew it, it was time to get back into the kitchen to start with the dinner prep work!

As the roast was cooking, Sue took Beau out later that afternoon for a walk back through the woods. I had gone out on the screen porch to see how the weather was, and heard water rushing down out brook by the barn! Because of the drought we've had all year, we haven't had any water coming down the brook until now with all of the snow melt and rain. I asked Sue to get a picture of it as she and Beau headed out.

Sitting down for our Christmas dinner.

With a bottle of Josh, which had really smoothed out through the course of the afternoon. I'll do that again, for sure.