Merry Christmas!!

I hope everyone had a wonderful celebration of Christ's birth today! We did, starting with a beautiful candelight service at church last night. We are now meeting for morning services at a neaby middle school, and we just haven't been with it enough to go to the evening service lately, so it had been a while since we were in our lovely old little church. It is the perfect place for a candlelight service!

Actually, yesterday was a good day all in all, in that I finally really made noticeable progress in getting the house back together again. All the books are back in our 3 double bookcases in the the study, and the dining room, while still filled with laundry room stuff, is a little mroe organized. I got a box for shoes and a big box for coats, since we have no place to put them, and that has helped keep the entry way passable. I find I am better able to get in the Christmas spirit when the house is not a total wreck! I made some stuff for today's dinner yesterday, and I also baked some cookies. Of course, Bob and I stayed up way too late wrapping presents. I greatly dislike wrapping presents, and I had not wrapped a single one, even though I had finished my shopping for the kids back in Ohio. Next year I am resolved to wrap presents as they come in! And maybe I'll lose those 10 pounds too . . .

This morning, Bob's sister Ann, her husband Wally, and their adult son Matthew drove up from Richmond to spend the day. We had a great time! Our family opened stockings first thing and then ate breakfast. The kids played while I showered, and Ann and Wally got here around 10:30. Then we all opened gifts. We really don't get the kids much--2 gifts each, one of them being a book--but it sure looked like a Walmart had exploded in our living room! They got a lot of very nice gifts from relatives, and they all spent the rest of the day happily building Lego sets, reading books, wearing Star Wars Clone trooper helmets (Caleb and Jonathan), wearing princess jewelry (Anna and Grace), and getting into things (Faith). Ann teaches cake decorating at Michael's, and she had brought some of her cake decorating stuff, plus a bunch of cupcakes. She taught the kids some decorating techniques and let them practice on cupcakes, which they really enjoyed. Actually, their absolute favorite part was eating the icing, if you can imagine that.

We ate our big meal at 3:00, and we had our birthday party for Jesus later in the afternoon. Then we played a game of Apples to Apples, which was a lot of fun. You need a game that is not too mentally strenuous after all that food! By then it was raining/sleeting, so Ann and Wally needed to get back on the road before things got too messy. We were so glad they came up though!

This year, I tried a new turkey recipe. Several weeks ago, I roasted a chicken using a recipe from my Dining on A Dime cookbook. It was sooo good--like Boston Market! The recipe said you could use it for a turkey, so that is what I tried. Let me tell you, it really turned out well. Probably the best turkey I've had! It was very moist and flavorful. So as a Christmas present to you, I'm going to give you the recipe:

Roast Sticky Chicken or Turkey

4 tsp. salt
2 tsp. paprika
1 tsp. cayenne pepper
1 tsp. onion powder
1 tsp. thyme
1 tsp. white pepper [I don't have this, so I don't use it!]
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1 large (10#) whole chicken, chicken parts, or 20 # turkey (double spices if using on a big turkey)
1 cup chopped onion

Combine all the spices. Remove innards from chicken (or turkey). Rinse chicken. Rub the spice mixture into the chicken both inside and out, making sure it is evenly distributed and down deep into the skin. Place in a 9x13 pan (or a turkey roasting pan), seal with foil and refrigerate overnight. If using chicken parts, just rub over both sides of parts. When ready to roast chicken, stuff cavity with onions. If using chicken parts, place on top of onions. Roast, uncovered, at 250 degrees for 5 hours. Roast chicken parts 3-5 hours. Roast a turkey 8-10 hours. After the first hour, baste chicken with pan juices every half hour to 45 minutes. If you don't have enough juices to baste, you can add 1 cup water to the pan. The chicken will be golden to dark brown with carmelized juices on the bottom. Let the chicken rest about 10 minutes before carving.

Notes from me: My oven doesn't go down as low as 250, so I roasted at 275. The chicken I roasted was done in about 3 hours. I roasted a 19 pound turkey, and it took 7 hours. I tented the top with foil after the first 3-4 hours, because it was getting dark brown. I worried that the turkey would be dry after being in the oven for so long, but it was so very moist! Delicious! Merry Christmas!