Christmas Charcuterie
The peanut brittle is made, the cookies given away, and more dough in the fridge for what will be a first for Joey and me — making cut outs together. I’ve wrapped presents, stuffed stockings, and collected all the various things needed for tomorrow’s feasting. Morning coffee will be accompanied by my first foray into monkey bread and afternoon will be charcuterie boards: one vegan and one not.
This is also my first time putting together charcuterie boards of any dietary choosing. I needed to prep last weekend as I wanted to avoid, as much as possible, being out this week. The problem is the same as it has been since Joey and my first Christmas together — his family doesn’t communicate the schedule in advance. It’s always stressful, and anxiety laden.
I didn’t even want to bring it up this year. But I asked. He said he was going for Christmas eve, maybe a stop by on Christmas day. Which is how I came to charcuterie — it doesn’t require any timing whatsoever and a friend had done it for Thanksgiving, which sounded lovely at the time.
For the eve of the holiday tonight, I roasted a Tofurkey ham-style roast. Another first for me as I usually like to make a seitan roast myself for the week, but pain dictates some short cuts if I want to make things like cookies and monkey bread.
For my part, I’m glad he’s getting to spend time with his kids. I just wish the circumstance was changed. I’m not welcome — not for any real reason than they aren’t “comfortable” with the idea of me. It’s caused a great amount of turmoil the last few years, and the reality remains that I am not sure I’d even go if invited at this point.
Without going into any specific detail, the dispassionate cruelty I’ve seen is just unexplainable. I don’t come from a family where we treat people this way. And still, I helped go get the gifts, wrap them, package them up to be taken to his parents. I’ve gotten gifts again for his kids that will go un-thanked. It’s because I love Joey — I want to make it ok, even if I know it will probably always be something that would inspire a Joyce Carol Oates novel.
So sitting here this evening, I can only hope all is going well. I zoomed again with own family with dad walking me around the yard to see the lights. It was really quite nice — even if I saw dad had a few bum lights (a running joke). We will video again in the morning after Santa has come, he’s eaten the cookies, and the Diet Pepsi of mom’s that Winter willingly sacrificed when I explained that Santa has a long night and would probably appreciate the caffeine. It made perfect sense to her — which is why I love her so.
Song of the day: Hallelujah, Leonard Cohen
