Birthday/Holiday dinner

On Sunday we went to my parents' house for dinner.  It was my parents' anniversary and we were celebrating my mom's birthday as well as the holiday season.

I made a prime rib roast, brussels sprouts with bacon, and caramelized corn with mint.  I also brought the snickerdoodle cookies I made earlier last week.  Lawrence made potatoes au gratin that my brother and aunt totally scarfed down.  My brother made garlic mashed potatoes, and my mom made a tomato ox-tail soup.  The food was all well received, thankfully.  It's not the type of fare they usually eat.

I totally forgot to get my mom a birthday present.  :(  I also did not get any of them Christmas presents.  I was going to bring snowflakes.  I crocheted lace snowflakes as ornaments for my coworkers.  I was going to give my parents a few bigger ones but I hadn't starched/blocked any of them yet and I forgot I won't be seeing them again until after Christmas since they're going to Vegas.  I guess everyone is getting belated gifts from me.

Doh, I also forgot to bring Melody a snowflake.  I probably need to make some more for my cousins too.  I still have another week and a half for those.

We still don't have a Christmas tree yet.  I've mentally given up on the whole idea just so I won't be disappointed.  Every time we plan to go get a tree...something comes up and we don't have time, we're too lazy/tired, or we're not in the mood anymore.  I feel like I should have decorated more to make up for it, but I had been waiting for a tree to really start decorating.  We put up lights around the apartment and that's about it.

At my division's holiday party, I won the centerpiece (now that I think about it, I won it last year too).  It was actually a really nice flower arrangement in a squarish vase.

The holidays seemed to have really snuck up on me this year.  I just barely planned for gifts in time and only made non-personalized items that I could crank out fairly quickly.  I just barely starched them with corn starch last night, AND I had a 9am meeting this morning I had to be on time for.