Thursday, December 20, 2007

We are having a cowboy christmas this year. We live in Austin Texas, and our chances of having a white christmas are the same as a snowball's chance in .... oh, you get the idea. To add insult to injury, it's probably going to be fairly warm (60s or maybe even 70s) on christmas day. Add to that that Hubby doesn't like turkey all that much, even though he makes the best smoked one around, and also dislikes ham, and you run out of options when you're the hosting the meal on the big day.
So, Hubby is going to smoke a brisket. My mom is making her famous picnic potato salad and a pecan pie, which I'll serve with bluebell vanilla bean ice cream. I'll make homemade charo beans. We'll serve as much "texas" themed food as I can think of, even for appetisers... sugared pecans, chips and salsa, and grilled jalepeno poppers... which are pickled jalepenos, filled with cream cheese, wrapped in bacon, and grilled. So good! We're even having my brother and his family come over, so I'm really looking forward to having a good time with my family this year.

Friday, December 14, 2007

Where has the time gone? Thanksgiving seems like a distant memory. Boy's 13th Birthday was on December 2, so the family made the annual pilgrimage to Dave and Busters... my favorite place. No, really... not at all.
Then between work and getting ready for Christmas, what you have is no time to write. I have done some shopping, tonight, in fact... gotta love amazon dot com, always open and inexpensive to boot... and free shipping! I picked up some movies for Hubby and boy, and books for both boy and precious baby.
The lights are up and the tree is lit, and actually... it looks pretty good. This is the first year we've put lights up since we moved in to this house. The first Christmas after we moved in, Precious Baby was a newborn, so you know there was no way we were ever going to get around to hanging lights that year. Last year, she was still only just a year old, and honestly, I couldn't find the time to nag Hubby and boy to do it. But this year, Hubby and Boy actually volunteered to do it, or as Hubby put it, "do it voluntarily before you wear it out asking me." At any rate, I'm really glad he and Boy hung the lights. It looks so festive, and Precious baby just thinks the whole thing is so magical. Now I know why parents love the holidays; it's that look of wonder in the eyes of your little ones that could melt the coldest heart.
What I'm really looking forward to, though, is the Trail of Lights, an annual Christmas light display in the park here in town. Every year it gets better and better... it's a true spectacle. At the end of the walk (approximately a mile) you come to huge, I mean really huge (5 stories, maybe) Christmas tree. The tree itself isn't actually a tree, it's a bunch of huge light strings suspended from a moontower. Since it's actually open, you can run right under the tree and twirl around until you fall down, dizzy from both the spinning and the magic of the holiday.
But, as far as I'm concerned, the best part about the Trail of Lights is the story that Boy can tell precious baby. A few years ago, (OK, more than few) Boy won a coloring contest. As first prize, he got to actually light the giant Christmas tree... meaning that he got to stand on stage in the park on the first night of the Trail of Lights and he flipped the big switch for the tree with the mayor. Not too many kids can say they lit the Zilker Tree... and I'm looking forward to hearing boy tell precious baby this story as they twirl around under that big tree, falling down on the ground, dizzy from the magic spell that the holidays cast on all of us.