One last Christmas wish for you all

 From the incomparable Queen: 

Peace on Earth, baby. Merry Christmas to you all.

Linus knows

 Linus knew what it's about decades ago.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all ...

 ... except those who piss us off.

Have a merry Christmas.

Pepperdine does Christmas right

Love the appreciative audience:




Beautiful music.

Kit-tays gotta kit-tay

The sisters were enjoying the Christmas-time spirit by lounging on a chair. Hey, it's what cats do:

Seriously lounging:

Another Merry Christmas post

Hope everyone had the best Christmas possible.

We have a guy in the neighborhood who owns a pair of beautiful huskies (might be malamutes, but gorgeous snow dogs) and this is his Christmas yard display:

Livin' the dream, baby. Livin' the dream. A little Drake White for you:

Christmas is coming

So shop Amazon and support the blog. Just sayin'.

A Wolves Christmas

Christmas at Chez Wolves actually started on Christmas Eve. Cpl. Wolves and Married Into Wolves had in-law conflicts and so came to Chez Wolves on Thursday. Naturally, the animals were happy to see Cpl. Wolves, especially Jeb the Wonder Dog:

Yeah, he hung around with Cpl. Wolves quite a bit:

No, really:

Almost all of the animals got into the act. Sadie the Auxiliary Back-up Dog and Mischief failed to get into the act here, but they were the only ones:

Always good to have them over, and a very nice Christmas Eve it was, with one glaring exception that I will discuss in a later post. It involved what we watched, which definitely was not on our list of annual holiday favorites.

Kitties like Christmas, too

Naturally, the kit-tays view Christmas as playtime. Here is Mayhem, doing the whole kitty-in-a-bag thing:

And she flashed laser eyes:

 And, of course, they enjoy them some wrapping paper:

Merry Christmas, kitties -- and all of y'all, too.

A Christmas tragedy

Walking the dogs on Christmas morning, I looked up and saw what I was sure I couldn't be seeing. Could that possibly be . . .:

No way, right? I mean, the guy's been at this for I don't know how long. But there was all the evidence I needed:

Looks an awful lot like Santa fell off the roof. Or was it an accident? An anti-Christmas ambush? You decide.

So this is Christmas . . .

Never really thought black was a good Christmas color. Until now:

No, really:

I don't even care who wins the game. Merry Christmas, y'all.

Some people are just really good at Christmas

Cpl. Wolves is perhaps the best gift-giver ever. He consistently gives gifts that are not what you expected but are exactly what you wanted. Every damn time. It's embarrassing. Anyway, this year he gave me this:

It is, of course, a framed picture of Aaron Rodgers during Super Bowl XLV, which, yeah, we won, and Rodgers was the MVP. So far, great. More? Yeah:

It is autographed. I cried like a baby. Kind of like I did when we won Super Bowl XLV. So, yeah, it's already on the wall. And no, it is not crooked. That's just how the picture looks.

God, I love that kid.

Yes, I have Christmas food porn coming

We have a big family meal coming up tomorrow night, including a recipe I have not previously shared. There was some debate about putting this recipe on the blog, as the woman who gave it to me, a caterer who was a friend of my late mother-in-law, swore me to secrecy. On the other hand, that was to protect her business, and she is now deceased, so at the risk of sounding insensitive (has anyone reading this blog regularly gained the sense that I care about sounding insensitive?) I will be posting food porn tomorrow about that recipe and the rest of the Christmas meal. In the meantime, watch one of the Five Essential Christmas Movies, and we'll talk tomorrow.

Linus knew what was going on

All of you please remember why we celebrate tomorrow as a time of giving, joy and love. Sometimes it takes a cartoon to remind us what is really true:



Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Hey, time for some haikus

I mean, why not? It hardly counts as blogging behind enemy lines if the enemy lets you do whatever you want. But never forget Rule No. 4. Nothing good lasts forever, especially in Temp Town. So, without further ado:

Christmas coming soon.
Workplace extremely cheerless,
So let's watch Die Hard.

Still no work for us
But we still have overtime
So that's pretty cool.

Swordfish looking good
Like healthy competitor
Or swimming zombie.

I guess we'll be back
doing squat again next week
Merry Christmas, y'all.

Looking like a very kit-tay Christmas

Getting down to the wire, Christmas-wise, so there are some pretty festive sights around the Wolves household. Mrs. Wolves made an attractive display of all the presents (we have a small tree, and the presents don't go under it):

Then more presents got added to the pile and she decided to move them to a more sustainable location and made another attractive display:

You can't put presents out like that with kit-tays around, though, unless you want this to happen:

And this:

Of course, when kit-tays do this and that, they sometimes wind up with wrapping tape on their little kit-tay noses:

Which can be difficult to remove:

And you know at some point they're going to tag team a package:

I am sure there will more forthcoming photos of rampaging kit-tays, because Mrs. Wolves lives to take their picture, and the kit-tays live to eat, sleep and mess with stuff.

Must be almost Christmas

Christmas inevitably means that there will be boxes around the house, at least until somebody gets off his ass and takes them out to the trash. In the time between the emptying of the boxes and their disposal, though, those boxes serve as a source of endless enjoyment for the kit-tays of the house. Here, one of them explores the interior of one box in a pile of boxes:

I am told by Mrs. Wolves that the kit-tays have been raising hell with ribbons off of Christmas presents, so I anticipate having more seasonal photos when I get home. Maybe video, too.

Just a little holiday cheer for you

Game food is coming later (Marrying Into Wolves had to work today, so we are recording the game for when she gets here, hence the delay.) In the meantime, I give you this (sent to me by a reader -- please, feel free to do so, kids) to get you in the holiday spirit:

Ho, ho, ho.

Christmas breakfast food porn!

Look, I swear this is not a food blog. I just blog about food sometimes. Having said that, we have some breakfast food porn that I served the morning of Christmas Eve. It's easy to fix and can be done the night before and shoved into the oven straight from the fridge -- quick and easy in the morning.

You will need a pound of bacon, 6 eggs (beaten), 2 cups of shredded cheddar, 1-1/4 cup of shredded swiss or mozzarella, 1 onion chopped, 4 cups of shredded hash browns and 1-1/2 cup of cottage cheese:

Shred those potatoes and chop that onion:

 Cook the bacon and onion in a skillet, and add the shredded potatoes. Depending on your bacon's fat content, you might want to drain the fat about halfway through the onion-bacon cooking, then add the potatoes at that point. Or, leave it. Fat makes things taste good.

Meanwhile, you have beaten your eggs. This remains legal everywhere except New York and Illinois:

 Time to combine a bunch of ingredaments. Into the bowl containing the beaten (but still defiant) eggs, add the various cheeses you will. (Gotta love cooking with Yoda):

Mix it up right, people:

Now stir in the onion-bacon-hash browns mixture:

Any time now, feel free to salt and pepper to taste. I prefer to leave that to the consumer. Pour that mix into a big ol' casserole dish:

Preheat the oven to 350, bake for 35-40 minutes until the mix is set firm and bubbly. Let it sit for 10 minutes once out of the oven, then serve and enjoy:

Do everything but bake it the night before, easiest damn breakfast you ever ate. Next time I make it, I might try diced hash browns instead of shredded, for more texture. Still up in the air on that. Either way, freaking excellent. Bon appetit!

Merry Christmas, people