'Twas the Night Before Christmas

'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the camper, not a creature was stirring, except a restless French Bulldog, a pleasantly plump lab and an overly caffeinated grandma.  

The stockings were hung on the slideout with care, in hopes that St. Nicholas would soon be here. 

Barb and I have celebrated Christmas to its fullest for 38 years now. Mostly with friends and family, a couple just by ourselves. This year finds us in Greencastle Pennsylvania celebrating Christmas with our daughter Jessica, her husband Shane and their two kids Dylan and Kendall.

The last time we celebrated Christmas with them was in 2014 when the kids looked like this.

Now they look like this....

Shane and Jess are in the middle of a very busy few days. With many friends and family in the area they have several get togethers planned. Our day with them was today, Christmas Eve. And tomorrow morning before they head off to Shane's family gathering. 

Several nights before Christmas found Shane and I at the kitchen table surrounded by 9 bottles of bourbon. We had a challenge in front of us. To sip each of them, ranking them in order of our least favorite to our favorite. 

Barb and Jess were the moderators, pouring and numbering each of the mini dixie cups so we would not know what was in which cup. Then the tasting began. Just enough to wet the palette and get an idea of the aroma, flavor and taste. 

One by one we went through the 9 cups placing them in order. Some we could not tell the difference between at all, while others were absolutely horrible. Granted, this was not a controlled test as the flavor of one often carried over to the next. The results were surprising to both of us. 

First, our choices were almost identical, with only a few variations. Secondly, since it was a blind tasting, we did not know until the end that one that we had thought was our favorites, actually ended up near the bottom of our list (Weller). 

Our top 4 (although not in the same order) were Blanton's, Eagle Rare, Sazerak and Elmer Lee. Our bottom 4 were identical; Hartfield, Weller, MannCave and Bakers.

Here is the thing about doing blind taste tests. We started out with 9, then someone goes to the cabinet and says "You gotta try this one!", then they do it again, again and again. That was several days ago, and I still do not even want to look at a bottle of bourbon. This is what we looked like an hour or so later...

Just for fun, we had the girls take a sip of some of the worst tasting ones just to get their reaction. Here is the results of that. This was a very peaty Scotch Whisky. 

Then momma, thinking she was Super Momma jumped on the Hoverboard and started hovering around the kitchen. 

Pretty impressive for a almost 64-year-old grandma. What the video does not show is when she biffed a few minutes later and she hit the back of her head on one of the chairs in the kitchen. Grandma is not allowed on the hoverboard anymore.  

Not to be outdone, Jess jumped on to show her mad skills. Her's, however, did not end as smoothly, ending in a death spiral. 

To keep us busy during the day, we started a project in one of the living rooms. This house was built in 1850ish and has lots of small rooms. Three of the rooms have fireplaces; the kitchen and the two living rooms. None are functional anymore and Jess wanted at least the look of a fireplace in the living room they spend more of their time. 

So, away we went! It is still a work in progress, but here is where we are so far. We framed in the old chimney, ran some electrical for the fireplace and the TV, then sheetrocked it. We talked about leaving the old brick, cleaning it up and exposing it, but it is in really rough shape and is not the route they wanted to go.

There is absolutely nothing square about this house. The walls and ceilings are off over an inch in a matter of a few feet, so every cut was a custom cut. The walls are made out of horsehair plaster and if you cut into them, they basically disintegrate in a puff of dust. 

We are working on a fireplace surround at the same time. Shane had a surround from an old job that I needed to cut down to size. We tried every antique store in the area trying to find one that was already the right size, but no luck.  

This one needed 10" cut out of the middle bringing the overall width to the same as the wall. I am happy with my cuts, after the girls finish scraping it, I will attempt to put it back together hiding the seam as best I can. 

Next up, we need to finish the tape, mud and then paint. We hope to get it wrapped up before we leave in a week or so. 

Last, but not least, our Christmas photo. No one really wants to see us and I know Harry would love to see the girls dressed up and ready for Christmas. We took this picture a few weeks ago when Sophie was visiting. 

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!