Pies, Bunnies And Christmas Breakfast

​PIES, BUNNIES AND CHRISTMAS BREAKFAST

     My daughter Claire and her mate Miguel, 

...and my mate Tom and I,

...made a pact that on the day when we were all safely immunized against COVID-19 - two weeks after the last of us had our second shots, our Freedom Day, so to speak - we'd celebrate with a visit.           The day arrived on Friday, April 2, 2021, and so Claire and Miguel planned to fly in to Columbus from Chicago on that day for a quick celebratory Easter weekend visit.
        "What would you and Miguel like to eat while you're here?' I asked my daughter.
        "Pie," she answered.
         "Anything else?" I asked.
         "Pie," she said. "Just pie. Oh, and are we  doing the bunnies?" she asked.
         She was referring to our tradition of rising at dawn on Easter morning and surreptitiously (though I believe that by now everybody in the 'hood pretty much knows it's us) decorating the yards of our neighbors with colored paper bunnies (see post form 4/12/2020, "Bunnies, Bunnies, Bunnies").
         "Yep," I replied, "There will be bunnies."
          "And can we have Christmas Breakfast, too?" she asked, referring the the meal, also known as The Big Breakfast, that we eat every Christmas morning,    

...though said meal is likely to meander on into the the afternoon.

      Of course this past year, in the midst of the epidemic, there were only the three of us eating our Christmas Breakfast in our COVID bubble.

     But now, with the local members of our tribe all vaccinated against the coronavirus, there was, happily, nothing stopping us from having Christmas Breakfast for Easter.
      And so it was decided: Over the course of the weekend we would celebrate with pie, bunnies, Christmas Breakfast, and Saturday night dinner with my son Tommy and his mate Emily.

      And so a few days before Miguel and Claire's arrival Tom and I got to work, making pies and cutting out bunnies.

      Peach, cherry almond streusel, and apple pies, 

...and a blueberry cobbler, hopefully enough pastry to get us through the weekend.

      Though their flight was scheduled to land after 10 pm, on the day of their arrival I also fixed their favorite foods: mashed potato casserole, green beans almondine, and hot rolls, and also a new recipe I found for corn pudding,

...just in case they might be hungry when they got here.

       Tom and I met Miguel and Claire at the Columbus airport, our first trip to the airport in a year and several months. 

     The place still touted Columbus as the city of "One of Us" (see post from 4/29/2018, "What's So Funny At The Columbus Airport"),

...and, even though it was after 10 pm, still the place was emptier than I ever remember seeing it.

     We met Claire and Miguel at the arrival gate.

...then headed for home, where they opted to dig into the pie right then,

...and save  dinner for breakfast the following morning, Saturday morning.

      After breakfast Claire and Miguel did some computer work, while Theresa did some bunny work.

...and  I worked on a salad  for dinner.

       When dinner time rolled around we headed over to Tommy and Emily's, Tom's and my first visit to their house in nine months. 

      Dinner was a couple of most excellent Detroit-style deep dish pizzas from Jet's Pizza,

...with salad,

...and, of course, pies for dessert, peach and cherry almond streusel,

...served with ice cream and whip-cream.

     It seemed a most awesomely wonderful meal, the best I could remember having in a long time. But then, maybe it wasn't the food that made it so good.

     After dinner we came home and worked on the Easter bunnies.

     Watching Claire work with the tape used to secure bamboo skewers to the backs of the bunnies, it occurred to me that she looked like a nurse as she meticulously snipped the tape into half-a-dozen strips at a time, stuck the strips to a nearby tray table in a neat row, taped the skewers to the bunnies, then repeated the process.

        We cuonstructed a total of 210 bunnies, 14 for each of the 14 houses on our block and a batch for for Emily and Tommy's house, which we secretly bunnied that evening before leaving.      
        Bright and early the following morning, Easter Sunday, Tom and I bunnied the neighboring lawns.

     After all the lawns on our block were bunnied, it was time to begin working on Christmas Breakfast.

    The menu was, by popular demand, scrambled eggs,

​...and Chantilly potatoes (not to be confused with the potato casserole I'd made on Friday night - needless to say, we folks around here like our spuds), a creamy mashed potato mélange which involves, among other things, folding whipped heavy cream into cooked potatoes that have been squished through a ricer (a gizmo which I acquired for this very purpose) , 

...then topping said fluffy, creamy, well-buttered potato mélange with parmesan cheese and baking, the outcome being trés magnifique, as potatoes go.

    We also had rolls hot from the oven and brie,

...and a cucumber and tomato salad.

    For dessert we had fruit salad, cinnamon rolls 

...and, of course, left-over pie.
​       When Tommy and Emily arrived they helped with the finishing touches,

...and when all was ready we sat down and dug into our Easter Christmas Breakfast.

      And once again, Christmas Breakfast rolled on into the afternoon.

      After breakfast, at the insistence of the oldsters,  the youngsters went out for a walk,

...while we stayed home and finished the cleaning up.

      We whiled away the afternoon,

    Until, too soon, it was time for Miguel and Claire to leave for the airport.

       We hated to see this lovely Easter day end.

     But it did. And the following morning my mate and I did what we always do the day after Easter: We went around the neighborhood and took down the bunnies.