A Christmas memory

I put the Christmas tree up yesterday, a fake tree this time.  We bought it after Christmas last year for about the same amount as one real tree costs these days.  The time has come when we need to get used to cutting costs.  When we bought it I said, “We may never use it, but if I don’t buy this, I’m liable to want a real tree next year.  If I spend money on this, I will make myself use it.  That is, if I want a tree next year.  

Well, I decided to use it.  I figured I may as well put it up early, since there will be no shedding needles.  One of my favorite things about Christmas is the smell of a real Christmas tree; maybe someone will sell me some cheap tree-branch scraps.  Now that I think of it, we have several evergreen trees of various kinds around here:  You don’t smell them in the wide-open spaces outside, but I think I’ll try snipping off a few branches and bringing them inside to see if the fragrance is there.  Even when I lack the Christmas spirit (which I do, these days), hanging ornaments on the tree always sparks memories of my childhood, when Christmas was magical, full of wonderful smells, sounds, and tastes.  

Yesterday I got about four packages of soup bones out of the freezer, figuring I’d cook them in the Instant Pot to make broth.  The Pot had just gotten to the “pressure” stage when I walked by and saw it wasn’t working.  Even if it’s off, the light comes on when you plug it in, but the light was off; it was totally dead.  Cliff and I fiddled with it awhile, then I googled here and there for an answer, found none, and called the number listed on the Instant Pot website.  A lady told me my best bet would be to take it back to Kohl’s and have it replaced.  I’ve only had this 8-quart one since September, so I’m sure it’ll be no problem to get it replaced.  Here’s a thing, though:  I found, in my Googling, that these things often quit working within a year or two.  So, if it quits again and I can’t get a replacement, I’ll be done with them.  I will rely on my old faithful pressure cookers that you set on a burner and monitor closely.  So many appliances these days don’t last very long, it’s disgusting.  Anyhow, I ended up just boiling my beef bones on the stove.  Cliff told me there would probably be a lot of meat on them, as soup bones generally do.  Once the meat was falling off the bones I put the pan in the refrigerator to chill overnight.  This morning I took all the meat off the bones, five cups worth, and froze the meat in one freezer bag and the broth in other bags.  As I was doing this, though, I realized I haven’t made noodles in a long time (I haven’t had breakfast yet, so I’m hungry); it might be good to make a practice batch before I make the noodles for Thanksgiving this week.  I usually cook them in chicken broth with plenty of chicken in it, but beef and noodles would be good.  So I kept some broth out and put some of the meat scraps in it.  That’s what’s for dinner today.  I still ended up with four two-cup bags of beef broth to put in the freezer.  

While digging through the Christmas ornaments this morning, I found an email from my daughter from 1999 that I had printed off.  As well as I can remember, this was when Rachel’s family was living in Carthage, the town my son-in-law considers his home town.  I think it was the year when Natalie, maybe three years old, called us on the phone asking us to come and see their Christmas tree.  On the spur of the moment we decided that if it was that important to our youngest grandchild that we see the tree she was so excited about, it wouldn’t hurt us to drive 100 miles.  Monica was probably five years old... I remember she was showing off her reading skills during that visit... and she was very unhappy when it was time for us to leave the next day.  I will let the email tell the rest of the story.

Neither my daughter or myself have these email addresses any more, so if you wanted to email either of us, you’d be out of luck using the ones here.

That’s it for my morning thoughts.

Yours truly, 

Donna