Tag Archives: New Year’s Eve

brown…

01 Monday Jan 2024

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New Year’s Eve hasn’t been a big deal for the last few years… in fact, I’ve slept through it a few times, lol…

usually I’ve had a dark haired person to first-foot the house on New Year’s Day, but this year no one with dark hair was available… currently my hair is gray but in my earlier days it was a dark brown;-)…

I did some research and discovered I could first-foot myself as long as I was out of the house before midnight…

I also learned about the tradition of opening the backdoor to let out any bad vibes and then opening the front door to let in the good…

so I packed up my little bag of goodies, opened the back door to leave the house just before midnight and left it open for a few minutes…

then I went into the garage and out the big door, walked up the driveway and watched some fireworks across the creek for a few minutes before entering the house through the front door… the doorbell camera caught me as I entered;-)…

the tradition is supposed to be a tall, dark haired man, but really, I have had a few women do this cause why not…

my bag held a candy cane, heel of bread, an orange, 3 pieces of charcoal, a little bottle of Baileys, and a cookie…

it was fun to have the actual charcoal, because that is what my dad procured just before New Year’s each year to add to the little bags that he distributed to family and friends just after midnight;-)…

I did laugh when I discovered that I did the same thing last year, although on New Year’s Day morning, lol…

new…

01 Wednesday Jan 2020

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had a very eventful last day with my son-in-law’s mom, lol…

started with a 7 am call to have the plumber come out to fix an issue in the bathroom… this also meant we were up early…

meanwhile my son-in-law was outside shovelling snow while the neighbour snowblowed both driveways…

then we got dressed in our finery for a photo shoot by one of my daughter’s friends…

we worked from a list to be sure that we covered every combination we could think of… wore two different outfits, had pictures of various combinations of people taken outside and inside and had lots of laughs throughout…

a visit with the photographer, breakfast for lunch, and then I built a tiny snow person before enjoying a wonderful walk around the block in the falling snow…

many pictures later I returned, just in time to join the nap club;-)…

we had appies, homemade and store bought crackers and toasted the new year – at 10:30, which was New Year’s in Newfoundland, where my son-in-law’s mom is from…

we watched a movie, recognized the New Year in Ottawa and went to bed… we did not stay up for the Manitoba time, lol…

ended…

31 Monday Dec 2018

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ended 2018 with a delicious family dinner…

I ran out this morning to find some lobster tails and picked up a tiny orchid and some flowers… thought it would be lovely to start the new year with flowers… my beloved would have brought some home for me…

once home I prepared the twice stuffed potatoes…

then I relaxed and watched tv… I’ve been on a Bones marathon for days now, lol…

when the kids got here we finished getting organized… the younger boys helped set the table… the oldest grandson got Brussels sprouts ready and then cooked them… my daughter made sure the butter warmers were ready and my son-in-law barbecued the steak and lobster… had a FaceTime visit with the Ottawa kids and then dinner…

our traditional New Year’s Eve (or New Year’s Day) dinner was a treat… besides the steak and lobster, there were mushrooms, Brussels sprouts, salad, escargot sauce, twice-stuffed potatoes, and garlic butter…

yummy… we ended with lemon meringue pie…

everything was cleaned up and the kids headed home…

will be interesting to hear if they last until midnight, lol… not sure that I will…

coal…

01 Monday Jan 2018

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last night the Ottawa kids went out to a New Year’s Eve party…

before they left I gave them a bag I’d packed with a few items so that when they arrived back home after midnight my daughter, who has dark hair, could first-foot the house…

I had packed an orange, small bottle of Baileys, a few chocolates and a good sized chunk of coal…

when the girls were eight and ten we had taken a trip to the East Coast and had gathered coal along one of the beaches there… we still remember the fun we had that day… over the years we have used that coal to first foot a number of places, lol… I think I might be down to the last piece…

I had fallen asleep before they returned home and they had to call to wake me up so that they could get in…

I was surprised with a different bag which had the coal, orange, chocolate and a number of other items which they had read up on and included in the first-foot bag…

there was a piece of evergreen, a nearly finished salt mill they’d taken from the kitchen, crackers, a bag of candy coal, some nuts, cash and some coal body scrub…

took a picture this morning of all the goodies…

they had been planning and collecting what would go into the bag since they arrived in the city, lol…

seems like pretty good luck to me…

lobster…

31 Thursday Dec 2015

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for most of our married life we would celebrate New Year’s Eve with steak and lobster… started this tradition when we were newly married with a couple of longtime friends…

I can remember the first year, before we had kids, when we were in their yard and the old style charcoal bbq melted the snow all around it… the guys were in their shirtsleeves, it was giving off so much heat…

what great fun we had… over the years we kept up the tradition with appetizers early on, and then the steak and lobster very late in the evening, usually with at least one other couple… for much of the time the girls didn’t participate as New Year’s was our adult celebration…

when the girls were adults, they started to come for the dinner before going out with their friends, so we began eating earlier so it would fit with their plans…

the last few years before George died we would spend the remainder of the evening reading or watching tv and heading to bed after the midnight glass of bubbly…

last year I decided not to have steak and lobster on New Year’s Eve and instead had it on New Year’s Day with the family… I spent a quiet evening, watched fireworks at our community club from the dining room window… tonight I could hear the fireworks at The Forks…

  

I roasted a Cornish hen with mashed potatoes and cauliflower, with a carrot and raisin salad… a lovely remembrance… for years having a Cornish hen was a special treat for the two of us… a tasty reminder of my beloved…

  
the lobster is thawing in preparation for tomorrow’s dinner… 

  
everyone in the family loves it now… not sure why we ever fed it to the little boys, lol…

likely I will be asleep at midnight…

Errands…

12 Wednesday Dec 2012

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had a busy day at work yesterday…

then Crystal picked me up and we stopped for a bite to eat before fetching her truck from the auto hospital and picking up a few final Christmas gifts…  it was good to have someone to shop with…

I was reminded of all the times that George would have done similar things and run here and there, to fetch just the right gift for one of the girls or boys…

I still dislike doing things on my own, although I am getting much better at it, but some things just need someone else to make them more fun… such as shopping…

I am proud of myself every time I do one of those – for me – difficult things… on Saturday, I took the car in to the dealership for an oil change…  I also had a lesson on how to put air in the tires – a George job – and put the back seats down so that larger items can slide into the trunk…  the service folk were very helpful and happy to show me things that up until now I didn’t need to know…

tonight I went shopping with my friend after work… we went to Costco and had lots of fun…  it is always fun to wander around and see what’s new and interesting…  of course we both bought stuff…

I bought lobster for New Year’s Eve dinner… since before the girls were born we would have barbecued steak and lobster…  it started with our good friends and a kettle barbecue and a huge ring of melted snow all around it…  since then it just became a tradition…  New Year’s was for the grown ups and the kids would get put to bed and a leisurely dinner would take over the evening, often with friends…  then the kids grew up and started to come for dinner on their way out to their parties and for the last few years the kids and grand kids have been here for the tradition…

of course, this year will be different… likely Jeff and Crystal will do the barbecuing… we will toast a new year without George to make us laugh… I think we will enjoy some good stories and remember Cajun (code for burned) steaks of the past…  we will have to figure out how to get the lobster out of the tail and sitting pretty…

an eternal reminder of over 40 years of companionship

an eternal reminder of over 40 years of companionship

but I know that George will be with us in spirit and in the faces of my loved ones around the table…