{"id":19232,"date":"2020-12-19T10:55:08","date_gmt":"2020-12-19T16:55:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/?p=19232"},"modified":"2020-12-27T11:27:31","modified_gmt":"2020-12-27T17:27:31","slug":"countdown-to-xmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/uncategorized\/countdown-to-xmas\/","title":{"rendered":"Countdown to Xmas!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I was startled to see that i’d last posted on the 13th; how is it possible six days have whooshed by? And even more alarming is that Christmas is in six days! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I mean, in perspective it’s not really alarming. All the sadness and death from the coronavirus is what’s truly alarming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the speedy passage of time is personally startling because i have to get on the wagon with making the christmas cookies. I’ve made so many in past years but am only baking about five different kinds this year but i must start. Six more days!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Actually, i started yesterday at 4:00 p.m., rashly thinking that it wouldn’t take too long. I made a double batch of Liebkuchen, a spicy cookie that it kevin’s favorite. His mom used to make it, and it’s a spicy bar cookie with lemon. For some unknown reason i bought a big bag of lemons the last time i went to Sam’s club. why on earth did i buy so many lemons? I wanted to use at least a couple so they wouldn’t all go bad, so i zested and squeezed the juice from two of them instead of using bottled lemon juice. Also, for reasons only known to the deep-crazy part of my brain, I bought some whole cloves and had to ground them in the coffee grinder so they’d be fresh. but seriously, not necessary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These shouldn’t have been things that took a long time but because of the other steps also involved in the process it took me two and a half hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Also, I knew full well that they’d take a long time because I’ve been baking them for years, but once again, my crazy brain thought “I’ll do it a lot faster this year.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today I hope to bake another double batch of these cookies. Like I said, they’re Kevin’s favorite, and the recipe says that it’s best to let them sit and ripen for two weeks but of course that won’t happen and I feel that since I’m making two double batches, hopefully there will be some left by Christmas Day. Six days from now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile…here’s a photo of a cute little ornament I bought in Scotland many years ago. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

A few days ago I read a post from a lovely woman named Tanja<\/a> from Croatia who has a blog which i’ve mentioned before. She posted a photo of an ornament she bought in Oslo, and has ornaments from other countries because she’s close to many fabulous places and could get to them pretty easily. At least she’ll be able to do that again hopefully in the not-too-distant future. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since it’s a big deal for us to get to Europe, and because we’ve only gone in summer or early fall, I don’t know how I’ll ever manage to get to a Christmas market, but I hope it’s possible someday. The Vienna Christmas Market, in particular, because this morning I just read again that it’s the best one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We went to Scotland in 2009 and it’s surprising that it was that many years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Someday, someday…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, I have so many things to do and have so much energy right at this moment that i need to leap up off the couch, throw on my running clothes and head out. It’s relatively warm today, in the 40s, and the sun is out, so yay for that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, real quick – this squirrel was posing for me! Kevin put that big green thing up on the bird feeder post so the squirrel couldn’t eat the bird food. There’s plenty of the seeds scattered on the deck, so he’s not going to go hungry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Ok ok ok I have to hurry…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hope you’re doing well and hanging in there!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Holiday Grace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was startled to see that i’d last posted on the 13th; how is it possible six days have whooshed by? And even more alarming is that Christmas is in six days! I mean, in perspective it’s not really alarming. All the sadness and death from the coronavirus is what’s truly alarming. But the speedy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[28,907,906,43],"class_list":["post-19232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-christmas","tag-christmas-market","tag-liebkuchen","tag-squirrel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6JLYy-50c","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19232"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19237,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19232\/revisions\/19237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/graceuncensored.com\/WordPress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}