Smells of the season

Gingerbread, pumpkin pie, apple cidar, roasted turkey, fresh breads and homemade cookies..the smells of the season. My most favorite smells include vanilla and sugar cookies and include even the occasional pine aroma from a live tree.

This Christmas Eve started like most of the rest since we have had children. We were busy getting things ready for Santa's arrival...reindeer food, cookies, pepermint stick (because it's in some old song that Savannah heard on the radio) and milk. We were wrapping last minute gifts, making our last emergency trip to the local Dollar General store and pretty much trying to keep the kids under control. It was hurried and crazy but at 4pm things took a turn...we left for church. Seems like focusing on the true meaning of Christmas has a calming effect. We enjoyed fellowship, music and communion with our church family and returned home to welcome more friends for Christmas Eve finger foods.

When everyone was tucked in bed and Bruce and I were finishing last minute preparations for Santa's arrival, we decided it would be a good idea to go ahead and cook the ham throughout the night, leaving the oven open for more food to be cooked in the morning....we really are a genius pair. You should have seen us in action, preparing the ham, placing it carefully in the aluminum pan, covering the pan with foil, preheating the oven to 325 degrees and then, placing the ham in the oven. We appeared as skilled kitchen help.

By the time Bruce had finished assembling some "no assembly required" toys, it was 2am and we turned in.....

At 3am I woke up and needed to go to the bathroom. I noticed the aroma of the ham baking was beginning to fill the house....AHHH pork..the other white meat.

At 4:30 I woke up again....potty break #2 (might have something to do with the fact that I drank 1 gallon of diet coke before bed). As I stumbled to the bathroom my eyes were very blurried...but I chalked it up to being tired. When I exited the master bath, the light caught it....the hazy fog filling the house...the smell hit me...this time...not so pleasant...something was burning!

I quickly squirried to the kitchen and immediately noticed the smoke coming through the stove top burners...I opened the oven....smoke filled the kitchen....I gasped...hoping the ham wasn't on fire...then I discovered....

The liquid from the ham was spilling over into the oven....and BURNING!!! Not to mention the fact that when I opened the door to the oven, that same liquid was spilling onto my kitchen floor....hot, greasy, burnt smelling liquid.

I removed the ham from the oven. Disturbed that our genius idea had gone so far south. Ironically, it was about this time that Bruce showed up on the scene "I thought I smelled something" were his first words. HA...yay...something alright!

Together, we cleaned up and then glazed our little pork product and then went back to bed....

When I got up later...the smell still lingered in the house...in fact it is still here now...So, I guess for the Stinson's we have a new smell of the season to throw in our memory bank.

For the record...the ham was delicious. Everyone loved it!