Christmas week is here.  And, as you can imagine that means lots of grocery shopping.  (Thankfully just about all actual Christmas shopping has been done via the internet and most has even arrived!)

Christmas dinner menu:
Turkey
Gravy
Cranberry sauce
Mashed potatoes
Green beans
Butternut squash
Prunes & apples (family recipe)
Traditional stuffing
Pancetta & Chestnut stuffing (we aim to try a new one each year also)
Pumpkin pie
Pecan pie
Gingerbread cookies

First I went to Stop & Shop.  Ironically, there is actually nothing here that will be used on Christmas Day.  I got two beef roasts because they are on great sales also this week.  We’ll eat one tonight and the other on Christmas eve.  With so many people, roasts are pretty cost effective for us, despite their significant single item sticker price.  The four jars are beef gravy to go with them (plus extra since its on sale).  The carrots are for tonight also.

On Tuesday I went to Wegman’s.  There are a few things for Christmas here:  some decorations for the gingerbread cookies plus pancetta, parsley, and celery for the stuffing.  This weeks coupons were for organic produce (discounted carrots) and bakery (free chocolate croissant in bag).  The other items are to get us through the week (milk) and/or to the next time I make it to Wegman’s.  Specifically, I bought a bunch of granola bars because I don’t anticipate going again for a few weeks.

I picked up the turkey on Wednesday.  The thyme is also for Christmas Day.  I usually make my own breads, but these rolls were inexpensive and looked pretty tasty (confirmed when eaten).  I should have gotten a fourth bag though.  We had the rolls and gingerbread with/after dinner Wednesday night.  For dinner we had chicken & artichokes.  But, I didn’t have any artichokes so I put in parsnips & potatoes instead.  That worked fine.  The recipe happily takes most any vegetable combination and cut of chicken.  We had roasted acorn squash on the side.

After Christmas I made a stop at BJs.  I had a number of coupons that needed to be used before the new year.  Most of my purchases weren’t food so you don’t see them here.  (I did remember the shrimp this time!)

December has been a busy month – worse than usual in some ways and less bad in others.  I’ll get to all that we’ve done in a later post.  But, I wanted to get the grocery updates in.

Conveniently I only made one stop this week – Stop & Shop.  Largely we ate through what we had in anticipation of Christmas stocking up / leftovers.

Goldfish and bread were on sale.  The other items were things we were running low on.  And, for reasons we’ll get to on another day, I’m trying to stay ahead of groceries right now even if it means buying things not on sale more often.

A short post today.  The last big job for the contractors is to replace our countertops, so Monday they are tearing them out.  That means no kitchen sink at least Monday night, and maybe longer.  Since I’m very unsure and we have some evening events this week, dinners will be determined on a day by day basis.

But, I did go grocery shopping last week.  So here’s the update there.

I went to BJs.  I should have gotten frozen shrimp, but forgot somehow.  There’s some extra dairy and the soup had a holiday coupon.

I also made a stop at Wegman’s.

That was it though, not too bad really.  Frankly, too many other things going on!