Running Bear's December 2025 Coffee Shop

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My little angel treated me to a wonderful Christmas breakfast with bacon, fried ham, sunny-side-up eggs, and toast. If I hadn’t forgotten the sausage, I would have enjoyed that too. “Where did you put the sausage?” ... “I forgot to get it.” Oh well, it was still fantastic!
 


Good Morning All. Merry Christmas to everyone. Currently clear and 58°, heading up to at least 80° later today. We'll eventually get a vicious cold front Sunday, just after sunset.

Heading out for the Christmas Day marathon around 9:30, starting with brunch at daughter #1's home, followed by the gift exchange. That segues into a football watching event with the Washington/Dallas game. I'll squeeze a nap in before we head over to daughter #2's home for the traditional Prime Rib dinner. Daughter #2's in-laws from South Jersey will be joining us for both events. Always fun seeing them.

Here is my wife's hand-painted water color Christmas card to me.
1766669239453.jpeg

I get one every year.

Nothing special about yesterday. Spent time with last minute preparations and I loaded a bunch of stuff into the car. Did a load of laundry just to keep up and had leftovers for supper to make room in the fridge for the Boston Cream Pie cake that we're taking today. Also taking a Pecan pie, Champagne and Taylor Ham. Daughter can't get the Taylor Ham in her Dallas Kroger store, but we have always been able to get it here. It has become a family tradition since both SIL's are from the Pennsylvania area. SIL used to have his Mom send it down early on until my wife discovered that we could get it locally.

Spent plenty of time out in the train shed yesterday, which I'll chronicle tomorrow. I am needed for today's prep right now.

Todd - Wow! That ham for $2.49/lb seems expensive. I paid 97¢/lb for a 10# Hormel one last week.

The late Jimmy Buffett was born on this day in 1946. We should all have a cheeseburger and Margarita today in his memory.

Once again, everybody have a Merry Christmas today.
 


A very Merry Christmas everyone!

No White Christmas for us this year. In fact it is a gray overcast morning. Currently its 39F with an expected high of 42F. Might see
a few peeks of sun later, but doubtful. Still a bit above average for this time of year.

Have one more Christmas gathering today. It will be very small and held here. It will just be the 3 of us, and my parents. It will
begin at noon. It should be over about 3pm.

Other than a little prep for our get together, I have to finish the clean-up from last night. We did some but still have crock pots
to clean up and get put away and carry tables and chairs downstairs.

Kind of surprised my daughter is not up yet to open the rest of her presents. We did give her a few last night to open. I guess I
get to have another cup of coffee and enjoy some more silence!

Have a safe day everyone!
 
Merry Christmas from a warm central Alabama.
We recorded a new warm Christmas eve day temp of 78 F and it caused a foggy Christmas morning.

I gave myself a nice Christmas gift by finishing the painting of what I thought was the last batch of unpainted HO figures.
Several weeks ago, I posted a picture of a pile of figures.
more people.jpg


I incorrectly estimated about 150 figures.
Yesterday, I finished painting the last of this batch and laid them out to finish drying..
painted.jpg


i lost count and patience around 190 figure sand just dumped the rest of this batch. Realizing my estimates are often far off, there may be about 500 figures here.
This morning, I was tidying up and consolidating my HO figures from previous paint sessions and purchased collections. I am guessing that I have over 2000 painted figures. It should be enough to start populating my layout when I get to that point.
painted people.jpg

And the really bad thing is that I found about 150 more loose and unpainted figures stashed in 3 locations.
Guess I will have something to do in the new year!

Willie- Thanks for sharing your talented wife's card with us. Any guesses as to how many people you have on your layout?

Everyone, have a blessed day!
 
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HOHOHO! again!
36F @ 91% almost all the white is gone. So much for the guessers.

I get to graze all day ( again ). My Glucose levels will go nuts. Maria is taking care of most of the dinner stuff. I get to bake bread, slice some summer sausage, cheese and stuff like that. Right now it will ( could ) be 5 of us. Us three and two friends with nowhere to go.

Ya, $2.49 for pork. It was a 'have to have' for Maria even though my butt puckered at the price. I always have told Maria "If it is less than hamburger, it is dinner" and she held me to that. Because of issues ( described way above ) we had to go to the Rosauers monopoly. We usually have a ham in the freezer ( turkey too ) but not this year; so far.

Merry Christmas everybody!

L8r
 
Having worked for 2 pork processors let me give you a little ham info that relates to price.

Read the label.

There is "chunked and formed" $ and there is "whole muscle".$$$

"Natural Juice" hams have no more than 7% added solution and are almost always whole muscle.$$$
"Water Added" hams have up to 14% solution added and these can be whold muscle or chunked and formed..$$
"Ham and Water Product" have up to 24% solution added and are usually chunked and formed.$

Marketing does play a role in price.
Honey Baked Ham is an example. Spiral slicing increase the production cost.

Willie - If bought a Hormel Cure 81 Ham for under a $1/lb that was sold at a loss. The Cure 81 ham is a solid muscle, "natural juice", ham, with IIRC only 6% solution added. It's a very good product.
 


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