I'm making my list, checking it twice...

…..my grocery list for our Christmas Feast, that is! Got a lot of stuff I still need to pick up at the store and I don’t want to forget any of it. We had a busy day here in the Land of Sand and as fun as it was I have to say I’m happy to be home for a little while and snug as a bug in a rug in bed surrounded by my dingos. Hope you are all having a great day too!

My day started out with my breakfast du jour, a creamy dreamy green smoothie.

I then finalized our menu for our Christmas Feast Most Awesome Extravaganza. Here is what we are having, and yes I know that most people have a big meal on Christmas Day and I’m doing it all wrong, but we’re just weird I guess!

Christmas Eve Dinner

Herbed ‘Chicken’ Patties with Tarragon Gravy

Roasted Broccoli

Creamy Garlic Scalloped Potatoes

Croissants. (LOTS – this is my favorite part.)

Peanut Butter Chocolate Pie (Disregard previous statement – THIS is my favorite part.)

Sounds delicious, right? Right!

Christmas Day Snackfest

‘Sausage’ Biscuit Squares

Spicy Scallion ‘Cheese’ Balls and Crackers

Falafel and Sambusa

Hummus and Moutabel

Sticky Date Pudding Cake

Scrumptious to the extreme!

After finalizing all the yumminess I headed to the gym where I spent an hour working up a sweat on the elliptical machine. I love the elliptical but I think it might be straining my lower back. I’ve ridden horses and been extremely active my whole life and I’ve never had any lower back pain until now, so I’m upset by this and I guess I’ll be looking for a new workout buddy at the gym.

I carted my sweaty self back home for lunch where I feasted on this lovely bowl of strangeness. It was delicious and totally random. I just kept adding things to the bowl until I was satisfied it would make my taste buds happy.

Let’s see, we’ve got a huge handful of broccoli and carrot slaw, cucumbers, bell peppers, radishes and avocado, topped with lemon juice, garlic juice, nutritional yeast, bacos and a big glug of olive oil. I thrive on healthy fats, I tell you!

Then it was off to romp with the loves of my life – the dingo herd. And Cody, of course! Off to fetch central we went!

Jack is a butthead who plays keep away instead of fetch.

All tuckered out. I love that in this picture our ancient beagle bean Lobi looks like a regal grand dame, when in reality she is the silliest of them all.

Then it was time to fill some bakery orders. Candy Cane Cupcakes have, of course, been very popular this month!

After filling the bakery orders it was time to do some reading and writing and plain ol’ work and then we had to get ready for The Jingle Bell Run!

The Jingle Bell Run is an old Aramco tradition. I’ve told you about Aramco, the compound where I live (and where I was born) but I really can’t tell you enough what a wonderful place it is. There is such a sense of community here, which definitely has to do with having thousands of expats living this crazy, weird life in a very interesting country. There is so much camraderie and such a fun loving spirit here, I’ve never known anything like it.

Anyway, the Jingle Bell Run is a 5K fun run where we hit up some of the houses that have been deemed to have the best Christmas Decorations and we sing them Christmas carols! Christmas carols in Saudi Arabia!

I’ve explained before how Christmas decorations are technically illegal here, but in our compound the rules are lax (women can drive, for example, while we can’t anywhere else in Saudi) and things are overlooked. But Saudi is very mercurial, some years we can’t really have any lights at all, and then years like this people really push the boundaries and go all out.

I got my jingle bells! Sounds like Christmas!

Everyone else all decked out in red and green while I’m the dork in purple. Believe me, I would have been head to toe in green and red but it seems I don’t really have any clothes in those colors! Must fix that before next year.

Caroling our hearts out! What a blast! Cody an I have recently discovered that we really love to run, so that part was great, but my favorite part was the caroling, of course. What a silly and fabulous tradition!

We came home to quickly shower of the day’s accumulation of grime and get ready to head out to some Christmas parties. I fixed a super quick dinner of couscous, spinach, green onions, bell peppers and more of that broccoli slaw because you all know that as a vegan it can be hard to find food on the typical holiday buffet table!

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Well, folks, I had a great day and there is still more to come. I’m going to go gussy myself up and head out for a very rare night on the town. I hope you are having an absolutely amazing day and if you celebrate any holidays this time of year I hope you are ready for them! Now where did I put my grocery list….