A Different Kind of Christmas

For the first time in my 42 years, I spent this Christmas away from my parents. On Thursday evening, Winter Storm Elliott made its way through the Mid-South, dumping ice and snow and extreme cold on both Memphis (where I live) and the small Arkansas town where they live. And since the temps didn't rise over 5 degrees on Friday or 20 on Saturday, the ice didn't melt up in the Arkansas Ozarks. So we weren't able to safely make the drive.

We'll have a makeup Christmas next weekend. But Paul and I wanted to make the day the holiday at home special so we did what we could. For Christmas Eve dinner, we picked up takeout Vegan Pho from Pho Binh. The leftovers doubled as our Christmas dinner, too. 

We slept in on Christmas morning, and then I made Sourdough Pancakes and Vegan Sausage. And mimosas, of course!

Then we opened presents with each other and the pets. We each got one another Memphis Grizzlies sweatshirts.

And Maynard got a new dog bed and some toys.

The kitties got lots of new toys and treats, which they immediately fought over. You'd never guess these two are 17 and 15 years old sometimes. Seymour, our cabinet kitty, got some new toys, too. 

After presents, we got dressed and headed to the Malco to watch Avatar: Way of Water on the big screen. And yes, I know James Cameron, a self-professed vegan, promoted the film at a live animal dolphin show. And that sucks. But I put that aside and just enjoyed the movie.

Later that night, the Memphis Grizzlies played the Golden State Warriors in our team's first-ever nationally televised Christmas Day game. So we stayed in to watch that and enjoyed our leftover pho. Unfortunately, we lost. Oh well! It was a fitting end to a weird Christmas.