December 24, 2019 – Huck-Poo-ie! Good morning Christmas Eve Day!

         It’s 6:45 a.m. and I am listening to my cat wretch up a fur ball.  Welcome to Christmas 2019 – it is a great start.  Looks like it will be a sunny dawn.  Now, let me see – which side of the bed should I clamber out of to avoid the disgusting mess . . . Oh, got lucky, missed the fur ball by twelve inches.

         Sunrise was gorgeous with a cup of fresh coffee, the Christmas tree lights on and nothing else.   Pink horizontal swaths interlaced with powder blue swaths – eventually fading together making all the tree barks tinge in a rosy glow. Yes, well done God, a good start of Christmas.

         We have had driving rain for several days and how wonderful it is to see sun again.  I’ve more wet fallen leaves to get up before late afternoon, and probably make that Quiche I pondered about for Christmas brunch.  My husband calls it quince [the fruit] – let me tell you the story about that.

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         We went to Charleston, South Carolina for a long weekend near my birthday one year and stayed at a bed and breakfast down toward the waterpark fountain. Sadly, I can’t remember the name, but it was a lovely place.  The outside had hunter green shutters, our room was on the front of the building on ground level, and we could watch the pedestrian traffic from the bed – so of course, we closed the inside window shutters for privacy.  That part I hated, I like to see out windows.  But, I did admire the interior shutters.

         We are not ones to haggle prices and we drove to Charleston on a complete whim having made no reservations.  Mind you, this was before smart phones and the internet, not like today you can drive anywhere, find accommodations with your smart phone, and compare prices. But, this time, I actually asked for a better price and got a reduced price without much of a haggle.  Surprised me, I had learned a new skill.

         Our room was on the first floor and had a mahogany 4-posted bed, posh bathroom, and a pair of lovely wing chairs in a gorgeous print fabric flanking a small oval mahogany table near the full casement window looking out onto the street.  It was a lovely room worth the price.

         The dining room was in an interior room, beautifully appointed tables and chairs, with crisp linens an upscale breakfast buffet set up along one side.  I located a table for us so that I could put my purse and heavy camera bag down and allowed my husband to serve himself breakfast first so that when he came back to the table I could go up without having to worry about my valuables, as he would be at the table.

         There were a few other older couples talking quietly and when my husband came back to the table he said, “You will love it, they have quince and nice fresh fruit.”

         “Quince?” I said as I rose from my chair. The next table overheard my remark and the couple snickered.  I couldn’t imagine that my husband had identified the fruit, quince, as I doubted I could identify it even though my grandmother had a huge flowering quince to the left of her front steps on Russell Street in Littleton, Massachusetts, that I admired as a youngster.

         Lovely buffet and I smiled when I saw the warm Quiches on display.  Of course, I had a piece and some fresh fruit and a couple pieces of perfectly crisp bacon and came back to the table and sat down.

         “I knew you’d get the quince,” he looked up from his breakfast as I sat down.

         “It is Quiche, darling, not quince,” I said with a chuckle and smiled.

         “Quince, quiche – what’s the difference,” he replied.

         I exchanged a soft smile with the next table couple and they snickered at us again.

         So, I will be making, quince – ah, no, Quiche – for Christmas breakfast.