Weekend Update....

First things first... that new "Leverage" show in TNT... very good if you're into the whole crime/caper thing. We were entertained.

Been busy in Casa De Hausfrau. Did all my stuff for the Christmas party this weekend... Spinach Cheese swirls (very good and ridiculously easy), Smoked Salmon stuffed potatoes (also good, although I have a LOT of cream cheese left over, perhaps I should have listened to the recipe and not doubled the filling) and Louisiana Shrimp dip (if you're lemon-phobic like the hubby, I'd seriously cut back on the lemon... I used half and it ws good when I make it, but the volume on the lemon got turned up while it was in the fridge for two days). My sister in law has had better luck with the Dev... I mean Martha Stewart recipes than me of late, and she made some utterly awesome crab cakes. All she had to do at party time was throw them in the oven and then add the toppings and they were seriously good.

Today was all about the approaching beast, Christmas. My first duty this morning was to go to the nearest Toys R Us (which is not so near) and get some stuff to donate and stick in their Toys for Tots bin. I was... um... rather emotional on Friday and happened to read one of the local "how bad some people have it" articles that always come out at this time of year, where a particular young girl just wanted a weekend where they could get away to a nice, downtown hotel for a weekend, after having suffered layoffs and an evictions due to a landlord who let a mortgage lapse. But what stuck with me in the article was when they asked her younger brothers what they wanted for Christmas, all they said was "we like Batman."

Proverbial knife, meet my heart.

The hubby is a huge comic book geek and has turned me into a pretty big Batman fan. And I also understood the point of the little girl... sometimes it's just nice to be somewhere else that is not your own four walls of a home for awhile. I grew up in a household that did not have a lot of money... there was an unfortunate time where we did have to do the government cheese thing and I am so thankful and appreciative that my dad managed to get us from that point to put two kids through college and set up a pretty nice life for my mom... but no matter how things may have been, I never remember a bad Christmas. I don't want any kid to have a bad Christmas. I don't want any parent to worry about thinking that their kid may have a bad Christmas. The hubby and I have been through our share of crap with job losses but have made it do to the love and support of those around us.... time to give back. I didn't get anything that will likely "make" someone's Christmas... a couple of Barbie dolls and a couple of Batman toys... but my hope is that it will keep some kids and parents from ever having to file the memory of a bad Christmas.

After that... it was the grocery stopping with some extra stops that were Christmas related, then home to get the tree up. I spent an hour trying to find the lightsockets that are missing their lights with no luck, and I just gave up and started the rest of the decorating.

Got most of it done by dinner time. Dinner was simple... steaks, baked potatoes and steamed broccoli. Then I finished the tree, then we watched Leverage, then I started on Christmas cards. Then I stopped Christmas cards to write this.

And so ends another weekend.