T Stands for a Toast for Season's Greetings

      Hi everyone. Welcome to the T day folks and everyone else who stops by. This will be my holiday post as I won't be posting again until the end of the week. 

    Tonight we're due for some light snow, so it looks like we might or should be having a white Christmas. My daughter and my son-in-law are coming for Christmas day, and then my husband is on vacation for the rest of the week. I'm looking forward to some relaxing and fun family time.

     For T day over at Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog this week I have a drink filled post. Last was a busy drink filled week.

    In the above photo you can see my beer and also my glass of water. This past Saturday we went to visit my mother-in-law at her memory-care assisted living, and it was a really tough visit. She's losing her conversation ability, and I'm not exactly certain she knew who we were; I actually should say she had lost her conversation ability that day. It was a huge decline from when we saw her at Thanksgiving last month.  Whether it was because she was  very tired or because of having a couple of incidents in the past few weeks I can't say.

   After our visit we went and had a pizza for lunch and decided a beer would taste good with it. 😏

   We also had my husband's office holiday get together one night at a brewery in a nearby town. The party was at the Garrison City Brewery which is a microbrewery, and for my beer I had a pale stout. It definitely tasted like a stout, but was pale in color which I found very interesting.

     I looked up how they make stout beer, and I found some interesting info. Stout originally meant brave but then it took on the connotation of strength, and because this beer has such a strong flavor, it is called stout. I read that technically any beer can be called a stout as long as it has a strong flavor, so that might explain why my pale stout is a stout. 

    Stout is made by heating the ferment, and it is dark only if you use black patent malt while making it (like they use when they make Guinness in Ireland). But you can get lighter stouts by not using the black patent malt. I also read that the distinction between a porter beer and a stout beer is only that stouts have a stronger taste, which is why porters and stouts are often together on menus or in writing about beer.

     We also did a Yankee Swap at my husband's party.  I don't know if the term Yankee Swap is universal, and often there are different "rules:, so let me explain the rules we used as I explain what a Yankee Swap is. Everyone who brought a gift picks a number and all the wrapped gifts are laid out on the floor or on a table. People go in order of their numbers and pick gifts. Then they open them and  they can either keep their gift or  they can switch gifts with anyone else who has already opened a gift.

     Since the first person has no one to switch gifts with they get to do their switch at the very end. The worst number to get is #2, because you only have the first person to switch with. That is what I had, but I liked my gift so I kept it, at least until  someone else who opened  their gift later did too and I lost it when they switched. However, my husband had the last number, so he switched what he got so I could get my gift back. There was a Starbucks gift card, which I will pass on because I never go to Starbucks, and there were some fun little rubber ducks.  My childlike self really liked the holiday rubber ducks in the bag

so now I am the owner of 6 holiday rubber ducks. 😏 Grin.

    Here's 4 of them.

Smile.

    I also went out to 2 holiday lunches with some friends last week. However I was so busy talking that I forgot to take any photos. 😒

I'll  continue my drink post with this photo I took while shopping. I've never seen bottles of milk marked just for Santa.

    Coming from a house where we drink a lot of milk (and I know not everyone does) it makes me wonder if there is niche for this product so that kids can leave Santa some cookies and milk on Christmas Eve. Or if this is just a ploy for getting you  to spend money on this holiday bottle. And if you aren't aware, the tradition here in the US and maybe elsewhere too is that you leave Santa a little snack when he delivers your gifts.

    And finally a cup of afternoon hot cocoa in my Grinch mug. One side is naughty

and the other side is nice.

I won't ask which one you are. Grin.

Time to wrap up my post. Let me wish everyone who stops by a wonderful holiday season.

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