Christmas Eve Dinner

Grandma's kitchen was abuzz with activity when I showed up on Sunday night. "What's going on?" I asked.

"Your cousin is cooking Christmas Eve dinner," Grandma told me.

My cousin, S. arrived from New York the weekend before and asked my aunt about the plan for Christmas Eve. "Well, I have to work, and so does [Thel's mom], so we're just going to have pizza," she was told.

Apparently S. announced that she'd be damned if she flew across the country to have pizza for Christmas Eve dinner, and that if nobody else could do it then she'd cook a meal. She spent most of the weekend in Grandma's kitchen, I think, making three varieties of cookies, fudge, two vegetable dips, potatoes, ham, cheese puffs, roasted vegetables, and a stir fry for her vegetarian husband. It was delicious, and more than a bit impressive to watch our mothers hover around the edges at loose ends. It seems that the Christmas Eve dinner torch has been officially passed to the next generation.

Unfortunately, as the next oldest grandchild, that means my family began claiming that next year it's going to be my turn to take charge. I think they should let S. keep doing it for a few years...or at least until I expand beyond a regular dinner rotation of spaghetti or lasagna; Caribbean beans & rice, burritos, or fajitas; chicken or potato soup; and that good old standby, the stir fry.