T Stands for Dinner by Lantern Light

 Hi everyone.

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, Hanukkah or Kwanzaa, if you celebrate any of these holidays. And this is already our last T Day for 2022. It's time to share your drinks and maybe chat a bit about life.

The horrible storm that blasted across the US hit us on Friday the 23rd. We had strong winds which knocked out our power on the morning of the 23rd and it stayed out until afternoon on Christmas Day. I know none of them will probably see my blog, but thanks to the power crews who worked through the holiday weekend to restore so many outages.  I hope everyone who was out of power has it back.

And then it got cold. For us a low of 10 degrees (-12 degrees C) with  an added wind chill seems to happen at least once every winter, but it's still very cold. I know many of you  had even colder temperatures or even lots of snow, so I hope everyone is keeping warm and safe until temperatures return to normal.

When the power went out my husband hooked up the generator so we could have water (as we get ours through  a well on our property), some of our lights,  the refrigerator, and the TV. However, our generator isn't powerful enough to run the stove, dishwasher and microwave, so on the 24th, when we had our family Christmas  celebration, we did some cooking on the woodstove.

For breakfast we had bacon, pancakes and French toast. In the above photo is my husband as I put him in charge of the bacon.

And the lack of power didn't stop us from having breakfast mimosas. Here's my link to this week's T day over at Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog.

And our Christmas dinner was by lantern light. The table isn't exactly beautifully laid out, but it was the best it was going to be. You can also see the leftover Prosecco from breakfast as well as a bottle of red wine we had with dinner for more drink related items for T.

Luckily I had some foresight and made a beef stew the previous Thursday night when we had power, as well as a batch of popovers. The stew heated well on the woodstove, as did the popovers, so we had a  nice meal with some lantern light. Even though we can run lights with our generator, for some reason the  light over the  table didn't work well on generator power, and the bulbs kept flashing. That meant  lanterns it would be, and they worked well.

We had a very nice holiday though. It was just my husband and myself on Christmas, and luckily the power came back on after our woodstove cooked brunch. I was able to use the oven and stove top to make us a  little Christmas dinner. We also watched the first 4 Die Hard movies in our movie marathon and had a relaxing low key weekend. 

And look at what my son-in-law made me for Christmas. It's a beautiful wood sign for my bees.

 Back in the' autumn we'd been discussing names about what I should call my bees, and I'd suggested Two Pups. He did a fantastic job catching the likeness of my 2 dogs on the sign.

He even put a hook on the back of my new sign so I can hang it on my screen porch come spring when we open it back up.

 I also wanted to share some fun cards I have received for the holiday from some blogger friends. I know there's been some mail issues because I've been told there 's another card in the mail somewhere in the process of crossing the pond. Hopefully it will be here soon, but I know the spirit of the card has reached me even if the card has not yet gotten here. Thanks in advance Elle.

And also thanks to Valerie for the very lovely digital card.

This beautiful candle photograph on this first card is from the Carola.

And Jeanie at the Marmalade Gypsy sent this fun Santa gnome.

And last but definitely not least is this fabulous fun holiday tree from our hostess Elizabeth. And Bleubeard too of course.

Thank you all for your lovely  holiday mail. It is always appreciated. 

As also thanks for all the wonderful holiday wishes I receive digitally. 

That's all for me this week. I hope everyone has a wonderful and safe T day and the rest of 2022 also.