Too Early On Thursday Morning

It's just about 5:30 in the morning....... I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep so here I am. Lots of last-minute things to do for our Christmas party on Saturday night, so might as well get an early start today. I'm going to bake more cookies today, then two cakes tomorrow, and I should have enough sweets for everyone.

I drove to Best Buy yesterday afternoon......... our CD player decided to die. I swear, those CD players last two years if you're lucky. I was going to wait till next week to get a new one, since I'm so busy with the party this week, but I missed my music. No Greek music to cook by? No Manilow Christmas music? Not a good thing.

So off I went, and what did I find? Huge boom-boxes that looked like the front of a truck. Not exactly what I had in mind. Fortunately, a finger-snapping young man in Best Buy pointed me in the right direction and I found a smaller CD player to fit on the corner table in the breakfast room. This one even has a digital clock in it. I couldn't figure out how to set the time, so I'll leave that up to my husband.

I also had to run out yesterday to buy hot/cold drink cups for the party. I usually put out glassware for our parties, but there will be too many people here for that. Lord knows I've got enough dishes and flatware for our parties, but I only have enough glasses for 30-35 people. So now I've got some festive cups for the egg nog, soda, iced tea, and hot apple cider.

My sister called yesterday and we opened a couple of gifts. Her gift to me was a beautiful little book called "Plates." Every page was filled with displays of dinner and dessert plates.... such a pretty little book. I love pretty plates..... and I seem to find lots of them. Between the antique and resale shops, and all the estate and yard sales, there's always a plate or two or ten that calls my name. My grandmother (my mother's mom) used to buy different plates, platters, and teacups... she would mix and match all of them. (Her home was 'shabby chic' before anyone ever heard of that phrase.) When I'd go to her house, I'd arrange and rearrange all her beautiful plates and teacups in her kitchen cabinets. I loved that they didn't match. So that's probably how my fascination with plates started.

As a result, I've got singles and half-sets of many patterns of dinnerware. All sizes, from dinner plates to luncheon and cake plates. This year, I have a lot of plates that belonged to my husband's mom. She liked to collect china plates as well. I bring all of them out for our parties... much better and nicer than paper plates. Add to that the sets of silverware that I've collected from estate sales, also non-matching...... Somehow, everything works well together and who cares if the sets don't match.

I got so busy yesterday that I forgot to watch Barry Manilow on Clay Aiken's Christmas Show last night. And why, I might ask, does Clay get a Christmas show, and Barry does not? Who's in charge of that network decision? My friend A dropped by yesterday afternoon..... we got caught up on what's been going on this week... and she got to see our big tree before the living room is filled up with party guests on Saturday night. While she and I were chatting in the breakfast room, half of the outside lights out front decided to go out. One whole side, dark as night, including the reindeer on that side of the lawn. My husband will have to take a look-see at that today... he said it's probably a little fuse. I didn't even know those tiny lights had fuses.

More cookies to bake today...... I'll either do the cashew-butter cookies, or those bar cookies with nuts and chips and coconut. Tomorrow, two cakes to bake. Saturday afternoon, my husband will go and pick up all the food. Another year's Christmas party, almost here. So hard to believe.