Christmas Parties, the fourth and third

We're back from our Christmas weekend, spent mostly near Fort Bragg, NC, where we had Christmas festivities at my sister-in-law Amber's house. Beyond just Christmas, we were there to see off my brother-in-law, Jim, who's headed to Afghanistan at some point in January. It was a good time, hanging out with family of both the two and four legged varieties, stuffing ourselves stupid on fantastic food and never-ending snack tables and getting to meet family-in-law I'd not met before. The entire weekend amounted to a fourth Christmas party.

As to the third...

Back on Friday, our 8 a.m. Christmas party at the "liberry" went very well. I had to get up ass-crack of 6:15 to bake up my breakfast egg dish, because I'd forgotten to prepare it the day before. So I baked some eggy, cheesy, potatoey, sausagy, peppers & onionsy goodness and hauled it in to work to take its place along side the breakfast foods of my coworkers. We were all there, except Ms. S, who had to work at her other job. We replaced her with Mrs. S, the "liberrian" from Town-C. Tasty breakfast was consumed and theme gift baskets filled and exchanged.

My theory that many cookies could be had for under $5 each was correct, though not quite in the way I expected. My basket was overflowing with cookies, but except for the mason jar full of dry cookie ingredients given to me by Mrs. B, none of them were home made and many were of the Christmas cookie variety. Being Christmas time, this was okay, though I must confess I would have been just as happy with six packages of Oreos or Nutter Butters. (No Droxies!)

My only miscalculation was how much eggy, cheesy, potatoey, sausagy, peppers & onionsy goodness to bring. I baked a full lasagna dish and was actually worried that it might not be enough. However, with ALL the other food we had on hand, most of us just took a small square of the egg dish and still had a plate full of other stuff. Our stomachs were quickly packed, so I wound up taking more than half of it home to my houseguests. I will note happily, though, that Mrs. J, possibly the pickiest human being on the planet when it comes to food, went back for seconds of my dish. That's a Christmas miracle on its own.