For the first time ever, Larry and I spent the holiday season together. I will always remember it as one of the happiest ever. On Thanksgiving, we hiked Turkey Run. It was an overcast and wet day, but the trails were challenging and beautiful. Not a lot of hikers, but more than we expected. Lots of the shelters had been claimed by big families safely having Thanksgiving dinner safely outdoors. We found an unclaimed picnic area, and I made "Thankshiking Dinner" on the grill. We set up our chairs and opened our books and beer, and waited for our "feast" of "Savory Carolina Chicken and sweet pepper and onion pudgie pies" and "Cranberry-cherry pudgie pies" to get toasty brown and bubbly. We had so many laughs this day, and we ran around like free spirits. I told Larry that it was the best Thanksgiving I ever had.
The next day, I cooked my first ever complete traditional Thanksgiving dinner. I did the works. Fresh cranberry sauce, whole turkey, mashed potatoes, yeast rolls, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, and pumpkin pie cake. It was so delicious! And best of all, we had it for days! It was fun eating the leftovers for the whole weekend. We put the Christmas tree the next day to add a little cheer around the house.
On Christmas eve, I bake cookies, muffins, and candy for a few friends, and we delivered them as a few snowflakes began to fall. Christmas was sweet and quiet. I felt a little queasy throughout the day, and contemplated just skipping dinner. I decided a walk around the neighborhood might help, even though it was about 0 degrees. I was right. The fresh air helped, and the sunset I was beautiful. I returned and started cooking a fabulous Christmas dinner: baked chicken, golden broccoli bake, yeast rolls, baked potatoes. It was delicious!
The day after Christmas, we hit the trails again, this time checking out Pine Hills Nature Preserve and Shades State Park. We had a beautiful day of hiking!
Ralf and Jim invited us to their annual New Year's Eve dinner, but Larry felt it best to decline due to the soaring rates of Covid. They were completely understanding and instead arranged for a video vertical wine tasting of their favorite Napa vintner. They dropped off wine and appetizers, plus some of the goodies they can and jar throughout the summer. I made them a potato torte in a beautiful depression era pink glass pie plate. I made a delicious dinner using one of their savory sauces for the French mustard/chardonnay chicken plus roasted vegetables, a potato torte, and pumpkin pie.
On New Year's we had our traditional sharing of the top 3 of 2020.
#3
Larry: Trip to Smokies.
Amy: Trip to Smokies.
#2
Larry: "Bye-Don." TRUMP got his ass kicked and will no longer run our country into the ground.
Amy: Garden.
#1
Larry: moving in together
Amy: "Abby got a daddy." same thing
Runners up included our trip to the Outer Banks, to the lake house in Michigan, the holidays, our camping trip to Shades, and our many day hikes throughout the fall.
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