We had a sandwich Christmas dinner here in Hillmomba this year. That was the plan, anyway. My mom always hostesses our family shindig, and we decreed that enough it enough. She does not need to be stressing in the kitchen over seven side dishes and two main courses and kid food for the spoiled brats.
Mom planned to go to church, and a 1:00 dinner sounded like too much on her plate to me. I told her that sandwiches were fine. I took some deviled eggs, potato salad, vegetable dip, a chocolate pie, an Oreo cake, some wheat rolls, sugar-free brownies, sugar-free pumpkin pie, and sugar-free Angel Food cake. I bought those last four at the Devil's Playground, but made the other stuff. The last I heard, Mom told me we would eat at 2:00. But last night, my brother-in-law told me 1:00.
We arrived to find Mom darting about the kitchen, muttering that church let out late (gosh, do you think so, on Christmas day?) and that she didn't have anything ready. By anything, she should have meant turkey and ham, that she'd baked on Saturday. But no. She was baking hot rolls and pigs-in-blankets and whipping up some macaroni and cheese and deep-frying chicken fingers. I protest. Mom should have stuck to the plan.
I had informed The Pony before we left that he was going to eat a sandwich. That meant turkey or ham on a roll of some kind. I explained it would be like a chicken sandwich. He could coat it with ketchup if he so desired, but he was going to eat it. Not just dessert. The Pony was fine with that. He declared that he would take some turkey and put in on a roll not with ketchup, but with butter. He's a true Butterton, The Pony.
So I was not pleased to see Mom running around cooking dishes for kids that are grown. Out of school already. Old enough to eat adult food, or say, "No, thank you." Besides, if I am going to sacrifice green beans and bacon with new potatoes, and seven-layer salad, and hash brown potato casserole, and broccoli and cheese, and cauliflower/broccoli/carrot/onion salad, and sweet potatoes, and stuffing...I expect the young-adult-fry to have some skin in the game as well. It doesn't matter that they didn't ask for it. Or that Mom says it makes her happy to give them what they like to eat. They're not toddlers any more!!!
Just sayin'.
I hope that right now, Mom is lolling about in her new executive chair, reading Regis Philbin's autobiography, wearing her new slippers, snacking on some raspberry jelly sticks, sneaking sidelong glances at her new navy blue Berber coat draped over the back of the couch and thinking about having a piece of chocolate pie.
She says she had a very good Christmas.
It brings me pleasure to cook for my kids and their kids, too.
ReplyDeleteKathy,
ReplyDeleteI know she wants to do it for them. But I don't like to see her all frazzled. She could have let them eat sandwiches, and then prepared them something at a leisurely pace later in the evening.