A Near-Perfect Christmas Morning

On this Christmas Day, we awoke to a beautiful light snow covering the fields. Our new home in Connecticut is truly a scene from Currier & Ives.

(This is not what our house looks like. I'm just saying ...)

Other events of the day:

. Husband has long been planning a Christmas morning breakfast. Since darling daughter visiting from Hawaii is sensitive to wheat, the pancakes had to be gluten-free.
    Husband carefully measured the batter from scratch. (Did not want to make from a box.)
    PS: The pancakes turned out horrible. Tasted like plastic. Something went wrong with the recipe. Or was it something my dearly beloved sprayed on the grill?
     Not wanting to insult the chef, daughter and I took bites.  Tried pouring maple syrup over the pancakes to smother the taste, but there was something wrong with the maple syrup, too. It had a faint whiff of ammonia. (I thought maple syrup NEVER goes bad. Where did I learn that Egyptian mummies were wrapped in maple syrup-soaked strips of linen?)
     So now breakfast was tasting like plastic pancakes and acrid maple syrup.
     "This tastes like something you shouldn't be eating," one of us said as politely as possible.
     Everyone's forks went down.
     "Is it my pancakes?" asked husband.  Being his culinary efforts are brand new, I just couldn't say, "YES, it's your pancakes. They suck."
     "But the maple syrup is strange, too," said daughter. "Maybe it's my tastebuds, but everything tastes weird."
     Note: when I poured out the maple syrup later, it was watery. What does this mean? (Are my historical facts wrong that this elixir from trees stays pure forever and ever?)

     Anyway, the bacon was delicious. So was the blueberry jam spread on English muffins. And the Kona coffee from Oahu was great.

. Love getting messages from friends around the world.  The season of love and joy has no boundaries.

. To the cat, this is like any other day. If we threw a mouse into the mix, he would be enthralled and it would be a real stand-out day.

. If your visiting children are in their 20s and now live away from home, is it rude to remind them about slouching and slurping their coffee?

. Reading by the fire is one of life's blessings. We are grateful to the cavemen for passing on this tradition.