Christmas day started with what I’m sure will become a traditional breakfast – cold pizza, hot coffee and grapes.  After fortifying myself, it was off to Fleming’s Steakhouse to volunteer for their program of giving the homeless free Christmas dinner.  The volunteer staff was divided into teams for different areas of the restaurant and for groupings of tables.  Since there were quite a number of volunteers, no one was over stressed with responsibilities.  As is fairly typical, I gravitated toward a job that was well defined and for which I could institute a system – filling glasses with ice and water.  Having more interaction with the guests would have been fun, but with so many servers, we were kind of tripping over each other.

After three hours or so of keeping 10 glasses of ice water on the counter next to me, it was time to head home.  Once there, I set upon what passes for cooking in my world – chopping some cauliflower and broccoli for a vegetable tray I was taking to the dinner party.  Thank God Kroger provided pre-cut carrots.

Once at the dinner party with several of my friends, we had plenty of time to nosh, chat and drink.  When it came time to dig into the turkey, we had such a treat.  My friend E had out done himself with the most amazing turkey ever.  It was easily the most flavorful, most moist and most aromatic of any holiday bird I have eaten.  Together with sides of stuffing, home made cranberry jelly made from fresh cranberries, some sort of corn pudding  (sorry E, I can’t remember what you called it – I called it Sacagawea corn pudding), we ate until we could eat no more.  Alcohol may also have been involved.

Afterward, it was back home for me and the roommate and a visit from another couple of friends.  (It could sound like the start of a joke.  A gay jew, a gay christian, a gay buddist and a gay athiest gather on Christmas day . . ..)

Finally, it was off to bed.  No sugar plums danced.  I just slept.