The stockings were hung...

...well, not so much hung as set gently on the hearth. Weird crown molding on our mantle and all. But we're pretty much done and for bed now. There's a few more to wrap for tomorrow, but we need to recycle a few gift bags.

Told you about the gift bags, didn't I.

And I did a little cooking. Rachel pulled out some fairly challenging recipes for the two hors d' oeuvres we are responsible for bringing tomorrow.

I'm beat, so I'm giving the links rather than the recipes.

First, there's this Winter Crudites With Walnut-Garlic Dip. First, it's not pronounced "crud-ites." Its "Crew-de-tay." I've never made anything like this before. It's basically a vegetable dip that gets its consistency from one russet potato. It was OK tonight, and I think it will be better tomorrow, like any dip. Also, I screwed up and chopped basil instead of oregano. So I just threw in some oregano along with the basil.

Then there's this. Sun Dried Tomato And Pesto Torta. And I want to make this again. I mean, it will be good, but I made a few mistakes. First, I didn't have enough fresh basil for the pesto part because I used some in the other dish. So I added flakes. Second, rather than flip it out of the bowl so it's a "torta," Rachel wanted to serve it in this pretty bowl on a pedestal thing she got. Unfortunately, it was too wide for me to get a nice thick even spread on each layer. It's supposed to be distinctive layers- bottom up, white, red, white, green, white, red, white, green, white. Mine just looks sort of smeared because I couldn't make each layer thick enough. On top, I sprinkled a few red pepper flakes, some sweet paprika, some toasted pine nuts, and some chopped parsley. So it will look Christmassy from above to make up for looking like smears on the side. And this one is going to be delicious.

Incidentally, I've found Epicurious.com to be the best website out there for really amazing food when you have lots of time to prepare it. My friend Riley turned me on to it with this Butternut Squash recipe I made for Rachel and Lauren back when Lauren was a vegetarian too. It's fairly challenging stuff, but the directions are usually dead on, and provided you aren't really tired and make mistakes like I did tonight, everything comes out good on the first try and superb on the second.

Oh, and we took an abbreviated drive around Hidden Valley in the cart. And it was everything I'd hoped it would be. Although I did forget the Christmas music. But we had a blanket over our legs and the heater going and we were nice and warm and shmoopie for about 45 minutes.

Maybe it's the economy, but the houses were not as impressive as last year. Last year's contest winner scaled WAY back. We didn't venture over to the other sections due to time constraints, but we might take another drive before New Year's. Last year, a family in the Southern Gates had so many lights and such that they had to power it with a generator because their main panel couldn't handle it.

I've got to go now. It's coming up on midnight and I don't want Santa to catch me out of bed.