Season's Greetings from Athena

Our dog Athena is a joy. She helped to make our Christmas even merrier.

Christmas Day 2013 - Dale, Mom, and Joe

This turned out to be a lovely Christmas. The time with friends at church was marvelous and the time with Mom on Christmas Day was very meaningful. It's too bad we didn't get to do the traditional Christmas Eve fondue due to my singing in both the afternoon and late evening services at church. Mom sang at the late service at her church and also the 9:00 a.m. Christmas Day service. We decided in advance that it might be a little hairy trying to fit all the prep and dinner in in between services. Sometimes an occasional break with tradition helps one to appreciate that tradition even more. There's always next year...

Christmas Day 2013 - Christmas Day Dinner with Mom

Mom came over at about 3:30 p.m. and we ate around 5. In addition to the beef bourguignon we had a sald of field greens with grape tomatoes, walnuts, feta cheese, and Annie's mango poppyseed dressing. Dale did some oven baked Brussels sprouts. For dessert we had a lovely chocolate cake from Kowalski's. 

Christmas Day 2013 - Chef Dale

Dale and I had originally planned to make Julia Child's beef bourginoine recipe for this year's Christmas Day dinner. That would have meant spending a good chunk of Christmas Eve day preparing it and with having to sing for two Christmas Eve services we decided that there wouldn't be quite enough time without making the day overly stressful. Instead we combined the bourginoin recipe with out crock pot beef stroganoff recipe which cut the total prep and cooking time by more than half.

Christmas Eve 2013 - Dale and Joe

Dale and I both sang with the traditional choir for the 10:00 pm Christmas Eve service.  Here we are after the service looking very angelic in our choir robes.

Christmas Eve 2013 - A Magical Snow

A very magical looking Christmas Eve snow occurred tonight. Dale took this photo of the house. I can be seen being a camera hog in the center window.

Christmas Eve 2013 - Gift

I sing with Gethsemane's contemporary music ensemble. Our director, Cindi, gave us this lovely gift as a thank you for our work this year. I'll drink it in good health.