later on

i spent the afternoon downstairs working on my christmas puzzle, listening to handel's messiah. too zen.

mom and i decided we would buy fried chicken for the ward christmas potluck party. we were supposed to bring a food from your heritage. mom said we could call it "scottish chicken". lol. she made a sign with a scottish flag and everything. 

i left at 4:30 to go pick it up. when i got back we put it in a bowl, arranged in the scottish way of course, and headed out. dad wasn't feeling well and decided not to come. when we got there the gym was pretty full. i waved to anabella who waved me over and warned me not to let any of the elderly sit at the tables by the drafty doors. "the cold wind will make them sick!" she told me urgently and pointed at brother harvey who had just sat down at the nearest table to the door. i dutifully went to brother harvey who, when he saw me, was waving me over. he asked about dad. then i told him that sister lui (anabella) was worried about him sitting by the drafty door. he was discombobulated. but then his wife was  waving him over to another table and he good naturedly and grufly gave in. "oh, ok fine i'll move tables!" he blustered.

i sat at an empty table. mom soon joined me after dropping our scottish chicken off at the food tables. soon we were joined by yumi who looked so cute in her christmas sweater. eventually president roeder joined us and then the mendosas...or maybe the garcias...i don't know. two families moved in at the same time and i'm still getting their names figured out.

there was lots of good food. we had to be the first table to answer a question posed by the bishop before we could go eat. i answered the super tough one of "where was Jesus born?" and so we were off to pile up our plates with swedish meatballs, bulgarian salad, spanokopita, bbq whole pig, steam buns, fried rice, stuffed grape leaves, and so much more. there must have been other scotts because there was more fried chicken. mom got a plate for dad too.

the best dessert was the monkey pull apart bread slathered and dripping in sticky cinnamon and sugar.

after we scarfed down our foods we ditched. not that we didn't want to see the program but because mom didn't want to leave dad too long.

all was well at home. dad didn't feel like eating but came out and helped me with my puzzle for a while before going back to bed. i did more puzzling. i'm going to breeze through this puzzle at this rate.

i leave with our monkey who is feeling some holiday stress