The day after Christmas and we are both sitting here with our laptops watching old TV shows. Matlock is on right now. We wallowed in food and movies yesterday. I made both a turkey breast and a ham. We had turkey sandwiches for lunch and ham and the fixings for dinner. We were so full we didn't even get into the pecan pies I made. The law clerk and her boyfriend decided not to come over after all so we will be eating ham and turkey sandwiches and casseroles for days!

We watched The Polar Express in the morning. Other than the somewhat creepy elves I really liked it. Steve gave me the DVD and little Polar Express train for my birthday. I was saving it for Christmas. Then we watched part of Carnivale, the creepy series set in the Depression, about a carnival group with powers beyond what one would expect of carnies. Took a drive downtown to Blockbuster to pick up a couple more movies. We were suprised by the amount of traffic. Thought we were the only crazies out and about. I picked the movie version of of John Grisham's Skipping Christmas. I read it last Christmas and wanted to go see Christmas with the Kranks, but we just didn't get around to it. So when I saw it at Blockbuster I had to see it. I laughed my way through it and loved all the neighborhood lights. Then we watched Kate Hudson in The Skeleton Key, a creepy hoo-doo (Louisiana version of voodoo) movie set outside of New Orleans. The ending gave me the willies.

My last Christmas book for the season - The Golden Ring by John Snyder. What a lovely novel based on the true story the author's grandmother told him about the ring she wore on her little finger. In coal country Pennsylvania in the early 1900s, lived young Anna and her 4 brothers and sisters. Her father worked on the railroad and was caught in a snowstorm on Christmas Eve. While waiting for the snow to stop he finds a golden ring and talks to the woman who is selling it. It is her dead daughter's ring and she must sell it to pay bills. Anna's father buys it and then tells the carollers outside about the woman's plight and they begin to collect money for her. Anna loves her replacement ring - she had given her's away to a family who were down on their luck. A very touching book about the spirit of giving.

I am not a big Seinfeld fan so I didn't have my hopes up as to liking it when I saw a book by Jason Alexander - who plays my least favorite character on that show. But, I like him better as a caring father who comes up with a believable answer to his son's questions about the reality of the tooth fairy in Dad, Are You the Tooth Fairy? The illustrations by Ron Spears are an absolute delight and require several viewings to catch all of the humor that resides in the action and fantasy character packed pages. This is a fun one, and I am glad to see a Dad explaining about fairies.

All for now. I am going make a turkey and cranberry sauce sandwich. Yum!