No One Else is Awake Yet!

Every year, my entire family goes to Nana's house for Christmas Eve dinner, where she fixes the traditional oyster stew. How anything as upchuck-reflex-inducing as oyster stew got to be a tradition I will never know, but the fact remains that for every Christmas since I was old enough to say "eeew" I've had to put up with slimy, brownish bivalves drifting unappetizingly in, essentially, a bowl of tepid milk. When I was younger, before I had acquired the ability to say "that makes me want to vomit" with tact and finesse, I'd just drink the creamy broth and do my best to ignore the critters accumulating gushily in the bottom of the bowl. Now that I'm older, well, let's say being a vegetarian has its perks. This year, though, when the time came to pass 'round the stew, it came out that hardly anyone else likes oyster stew either, not even Nana. Family traditions are strange.

But that isn't why my grandmother is adorable. Nana is adorable because pecan puffs, little confectioners'-sugar-frosted cookies that she's been making for fifty Christmases at least, are supposed to be about the size of a modestly successful grape. This year, they were so enormous that she was either pelting the obnoxious kid next door or playing golf with the dough balls before she baked them. (Either way, I think we all know who's hanging out in the kitchen with Nana more often). When we pointed their prodigious size out to her, she was flummoxed, and said with her adorable southern accent, "Wee-eell Ah'm sure Ah have no ah-dea how that happened!" as she examined one of the cookies, which was about as big as her face.

Hopefully, I'll be able to convince her that we should just eat giant cookies instead of --

FINALLYPEOPLEAREUPIHEARSOMEONEMOVINGINTHEKITCHENIT'SSANTATIMMMMEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE