Amelia's here! Yay! It makes me happy to wake up and remember she is in her bed.

Yesterday was very cold but sunny, so quite pleasant in the house, after Ray built a fire. I did put the heat up before he did that, when the sun first came up. I made scrambled eggs--still not as good as our own eggs. I want those hens to start laying--and I might get a couple more, so we have enough.

Ray did a lot of picking up and I worked some more on the pastitsio. I didn't want to put it in the oven, of course, until Amelia was here and we were an hour away from dinner. My Dad was going to peel the apples for apple crisp, so I couldn't do that. We had lots of cookies and brownies ready to go. I spent some time looking for the recipe for soup I want to make for Christmas Eve, but that cookbook is MIA for the moment and the info I entered into Spark People is a little cryptic. I thought surely there was another soup recipe I would like to make and looked at a lot of my favorites. I have some candidates, but I am not totally convinced. Must confer with Amelia.

We took a brief walk, ate some lunch, vacuumed. I put the pastitsio together and my Dad arrived. He peeled the apples while watching football, reminding me of earlier times, after he wrapped a couple presents. I finished the apple crisp and knit a bit before Amelia and Kevin arrived about 4:30. Once all her things were in the house, we quickly rushed out and they approved a tree I had tentatively chosen, a cedar close to the house. This is the first time we all agreed on a tree so quickly and easily. Ray cut it down and dragged it back. Then we had to clear a space for it and make it stand up. This involved, in case you don't know, putting it in a bucket with rocks and water and tying it to the window latches in two places. It is a gorgeous tree, very full. It is not the tallest tree by far, but it sticks out into the room the farthest, leaving the least amount of living room!

We decided to take the rest of the day off and not put the lights up. My Dad went home before supper; he was feeling very sad, missing my Mom. We ate pastitsio and broccoli and apple crisp. Amelia went to Kevin's for Gloria's company Christmas party. The three of us watched the Mentalist, except I fell asleep. Went to bed before 9:30 and didn't even try to read.