Christmas Dinner

We had a relatively quiet Christmas dinner at Karen's and Richard's last night. Lisa was home from Dallas and  assumed the mantle of Chef to Richard's sous chef. (Earlier in the day, Lisa played Richard's saucier.) In any event, the meal was typically wonderful. I often wonder if there's a Tulk that can't cook. . . but I suppose that it's really just as important that there are Parkers around to appreciate Tulk cooking.

After dinner Ben, the hiking boot in the lower left corner, Daniel, with the laptop, and Stephen, with the pensive look, discussed General Heinz Guderian (2nd Panzer Group, Operation Barbarossa) while Natalie watched the Pixar film "Up". In the background, Mother and Richard are probably discussing the surfeit of desserts in on the kitchen table. Please note Karen's exceedingly fine effort at Christmas decoration.

While Daniel elucidated on Guderian, Stephen was coming to the conclusion that Daniel's beard and hat combination suggested an exuberant reveller AWOL from a U-boat Christmas party. The photographer heartily concurred.

This shot, in the kitchen, shows said reveller with his Führer - oooops! Father - sampling several of the desserts available.

Maureen was with us too. I caught her here taking a breath while she washed the dinner dishes, scrubbed the kitchen floor, polished the silver, reorganized the refrigerator, etc. It occurs to me I ought to invite her to dinner at my house. . .

Eventually, we got Maureen to sit down while we worked on the dessert table. Of course, when we were finished with that, we pretty much just wanted to stretch out and ponder the relative merits of buttermilk pie, chocolate pie, and pumpkin delight. The Ecstacy of Socks, below, says it all.