This was my first Christmas completely alone.  Last summer my parents moved to Florida, so I have no family left in Minnesota.  Well, there's still an estranged uncle and cousin in Minnesota, but as stated they are estranged and I prefer it that way for a reason.  I also have one other cousin in the state who I do get along with, but he's considerably younger and busy with his family that I don't know very well (my uncle was divorced from his mother many, many years ago).  With my new work schedule (3:00 p.m. to 11:30 p.m.) I've been having a hard time keeping dates straight, let alone my work schedule.  I probably would have had quite a few invites to join friends at their family gatherings, but I kept telling everyone I had to work Christmas.  I thought I did, but Thursday I finally actually checked my work calendar and realized I had offered to cover the "observed holiday", which is Monday, December 26.  It was too late to get invited to Christmas with friends.  With my brother having been killed shortly before Christmas, this holiday has been difficult enough.  Now I'm all alone.  I decided I needed to keep busy and do things I enjoy and not dwell on what was missing this holiday.  

So this morning I got up and got somewhat dressed up, not overboard but nicer than usual.  I put the "fireplace" DVD in and put on some Christmas music, but avoided the sad Christmas songs.  Then I went out to get the mail and my neighbor was on her way over to another neighbor's and stopped to talk to me.  I've known this neighbor since I was a kid.  When I was about 9 or 10 they bought the house next door to my childhood home.  I have since bought my childhood home from my parents and moved back into the neighborhood.  Before that, the house I lived in I had actually purchased from this neighbor's daughter and husband, so we've known each other a long, long time.  At any rate, she asked what I was doing for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  I kind of did have today planned out and didn't want to change anything, but I was open to tomorrow.  So tomorrow I'm going to my neighbor's for a nice home-cooked meal.  

Anyway, after that being set up I came back in the house and got to work baking.  I made a batch of ginger cookies that turned out perfect.  I also made a batch of butterscotch haystacks and a batch of chocolate haystacks.  Then I made about 65 sugar cookies.  I made the dough the night before, separated it into 6 sections and used food color to make red, green, blue, yellow, and brown dough, leaving one batch uncolored.  Today I cut out the dough and baked the cookies; red candy canes and santa hats, green Christmas trees and stockings, yellow stars and bells, blue snowflakes and ornaments, brown gingerbread boys and girls, and plain gifts and snowmen.  They turned out perfect as well.  

Once the baking was done I made my Christmas Eve dinner; turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and green beans with carrots - a TV dinner actually, lol.  After dinner I cleaned everything up.  Then it was time to give the cats their Christmas treats.  They all got some loving, gifts, and treats - then some catnip.  After that the cats pretty much went to sleep, stoned out of their minds from the catnip, lol.  I turned off the music and the fireplace, got into my sock monkey footie jammies, turned the TV on to the ID (true crime) channel, and sat down to play some Farmville.  I cheat, I use a snagbar on Farmville, so I had ovfer 1000 gifts on there to open - so that was fun.  :P  

Tomorrow I'll be decorating the sugar cookies and making a gingerbread house.  Then to my neighbor's for dinner, of course bringing some of the goodies I baked.  After that I'm going to settle in and watch my favorite Christmas movie, "Meet Me In St. Louis".  All-in-all, not too bad for my first Christmas alone, though I really do miss my parents.  We have already discussed having them fly up next year for Christmas.  I'm terrified of flying, especially alone, but even more so, there is no way I'm going to fly alone during the holidays, lol.

Oh yeah, it's been in the high 30s/early 40s and we've only had 2 snowfalls; the first one melted completely, the second one on Friday left us with a light covering.  Almost got my lifelong wish of a snow-free Christmas in Minnesnowta, lol.  

Some pictures from today.

Ginger cookies.  They're nice and soft, as opposed to ginger snaps, I prefer these. 

Butterscotch haystacks.

Chocolate haystacks.

Sihle trying out her new bed.

It's after 1:00 a.m. so I should probably get some sleep.  I'll have pictures of the decorated sugar cookies and the gingerbread house tomorrow.  Until then, here's one of my favorite Christmas lolcat pictures.  :)

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL MY XANGA FRIENDS!