the last lil crumbs of minutiae for 2007

Here are some renditions of Christmas songs not in heavy rotation.

Donde Esta Santa Claus-Augie Rios
Jingle Bell Rock-Herb Alpert & the Tiajuana Brass
Silver Bells-Booker T & the MGs
Frosty the Snowman-The Ventures
We Wish You a Merry Christmas-The Brady Kids
Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer-Captain Kangaroo
Auld Lang Syne-Little Bobby Rey

There was a full moon tonight. It was a memorable composition: full moon sitting off to one side of the house. The house was all aglow with the outdoor lights, wreath on door and the tree all lit up blinking in the window. It would have made a nice photo but I wanted to savor the moment rather than run inside for the camera to try and capture it. I was in my car about to run an errand when I spotted this. It has been my experience that a photo doesn't quite capture moments like this as much as you'd like them too. It was more for the mental memory book. Looked like a late 70's Coca-Cola Commercial.

This year I strayed from all obvious Christmas cookie recipes and just went traditional: oatmeal raisin, rangers, peanut butter and sandies.

The one obvious Christmas cookie I made was the spritz. I scored a dead stock Mirro cookie press about a year ago while thrifting. I had a mental block about the spritz. One year my mom made them, big mess. She made them every year and they came out great but I kept remembering that one year and how I didn't want sticky dough all over the place. Well, they came out yummy and it was uber easy and that cookie press is quite nifty. I added peppermint oil to the dough-Peppermint flavored Christmas trees=obvious Christmas cookie.

Olivia made tres yummy Mexican Canela and Anise cookies-OMG! They are the most perfect cookies ever. They look perfect like from a store , you can't even tell what side was on the cookie sheet! Lovely when a pastry chef bakes for the holidays. Yay Olivia!

Christmas eve is tomorrow and wow, everything this past year has just raced by. Last Christmas was still hanging in the air. I found pine needles in August. Only one, really. It was jammed in the floor board. Is this how it's going be as you get older?! Eeps! Slow down. I managed to get everything done at a pleasant pace so I can't complain too much.


Wishing all who happen upon this posts: Health, wealth and happiness in 2008!

Hot Cocoa and The Grinch

It was a busy and festive weekend so it was nice to sip some hot cocoa and relax with some Christmas cartoons this evening. I did make those marshmallows and they are awesome in hot cocoa! They were a lot easier to make than I thought and well worth making.

37th Street RIP

So after the party last night we drove down Guadalupe and I wanted to look down 37th street to see if the lights were up. Last year was so lame and sad. Most of the Christmas light people with the Christmas spirit have moved away. Wm decided to drive down the street and it was nearly empty, not many lights up at all. It was only 8pm so it's not like some could have been turned off. In fact the displays and lights on the houses in my hood are way more impressive and festive this year.

The video for Christmas Lights was done in 2004 and there was quite a bit of foot traffic that night. It was the 14th of December, a Sunday, and the place was packed. I think that was the last year the street was really lit up. Maybe one day, a fun group of people will move in again and turn the place on. Not at all what it used to be.

Thanks Mom!

Every Christmas I must thank my mom for giving me so many wonderful ones. The 18 I had at home and the few that came after I left home have carried me every year. I'm a very Christmasseeeeeeeeeee type of person and it's because of her.

She did so much for us during the season to make it special. She not only made 10 different types of cookies and assorted fruit balls, rum and peanut butter balls,various yummy foods, she made our Christmas dresses and Christmas Eve nightgowns and sat with us through all out Christmas movies and cartoons. She had a day job and us three kids who weren't really much help with the whole set up until we got a bit older. It could not have been easy.

I recently discovered the "radio shows" I'd create on tape with my sibs. I'd play Christmas music in the background and go around asking everyone what they wanted Santa to bring them. Then I'd cut back to some music, have more interviews, personal ponderments (much like what I do on this blog) and of course the follow up interview on Christmas morning: Did everyone get what they wanted? Then we'd hold an after Christmas day parade to showcase our new toys..ran from the bedrooms, through the living room and finished up at the kitchen and that was recorded too.

Part of the show was scripted, I did set up corny scenarios (a la Andy William's and Lawrence Welk Christmas specials-UGH!) and you can hear me whispering lines to sibs. There is an entire cassette tape colection chronicling several years of this. I listened to one the other night and it really brought back how things were as a kid. It left me sort of melancholic and sad the way it just cut off after I chronicled that last Christmas in that way. Awwwwww

It coincided with the year of "the Santa discovery" and it was a sad one. Still, I was able to enjoy the sib's ignorance of it all. I was able to help make things special for my baby sister for a number of years after that. Leaving the house and having to come home for Christmas for the first time was the next milestone Christmas. Then came Christmases without loved and important people in our lives. Then came Christmases that weren't at my mom's home anymore.

Despite the changes and passing of time, my mom has manage to always deliver warm Christmases one way or another, even when it's not even Christmas (some years we get together before or after). She has given us that Christmas feeling that comes every year. Love you, Mom!

Christmas is coming and I'm just sitting here

Time to stop working and prepare for Christmas.
UGH! No dice, not until next week. My last day at the job is 12/18. I say this all the time, I say it every year, I need to save up my time so I can take all of December off. The only Christmas spirit is on the other side of the office. I'm actually on the cusp of it. The side I am on is not at all festive. While everyone else had office tree trimming parties we worked. So, in order to preserve my Christmas spirit on the job, I must take all of December off next year, away from the job. It will happen. Last year I did great, got an entire week off before our generous, official week off. Getting serious though, next year, an entire month!

My favorite radio station started playing Christmas music 24 hours a day. 91.3 FM. Keeps me driving around and sitting in the car until the songs finish.

Off to mail Christmas cards!

Homemade Marshmallows

Something I must do this season for cocoa!

From Martha Stewart:
INGREDIENTS
2 1/2 tablespoons unflavored gelatin
1 1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons pure vanilla extract
Confectioners' sugar (for dusting)

Combine gelatin and 1/2 cup cold water in the bowl of an electric mixer with whisk attachment. Let it stand 30 minutes.

Combine granulated sugar, corn syrup, salt and 1/2 cup of water in a small heavy saucepan; place over low heat and stir until sugar has dissolved. Wash down sides of pan with a wet pastry brush to dissolve sugar crystals.

Clip on a candy thermometer; raise heat to high. Cook syrup without stirring until it reaches 244 degrees (firm-ball stage). Immediately remove pan from heat.

With mixer on low speed, slowly and carefully pour syrup into the softened gelatin. Increase speed to high; beat until mixture is very thick and white and has almost tripled in volume, about 15 minutes. Add vanilla; beat to incorporate.

Generously dust an 8 x 12-inch glass baking pan with confectioners' sugar. Pour marshmallow mixture into pan. Dust with confectioners' sugar; let stand overnight, uncovered, to dry out.

Colder Minutiae

It's cold, it's cold, IT'S COLD!!!!!!!!!!!! drizzly, dark, cloudy, grey and what a gorgeous December day! I love cold, cloudy, winter days. Days like these inspire and motivate. I'm not one depressed with shorter days and lack of sunlight. Suits me fine, in fact.

Seems like it will be a cold week. Just in time for holiday parties and festivities. YAY!

This morning, while still in bed, eyes shut, I was thinking of our last trip to the beach. How we caught cold waves for hours. Now that makes me think about Half Moon Bay and all the insanity going on there. Must be freezing. I'd love to watch Mavericks, more for the insane waves than the extreme surfers, but only if it were a cold, cloudy and grey day.

These last few days

Sorry, I couldn't hear you because I'm listening to Christmas music.
I will be posting the playlist with MP3's soon: Jimmy McGriff, The Ventures, Tijuana Brass.....Merry Christmas!

I have such an egg nog buzz. Half egg nog and half rum in an 8oz glass...bad idea to try and hang those big, red, glass, Christmas lights over the door in this condition. Too late, sweep later.

Saturday: My new, vintage repro, Noel Candle, outdoor lights arrived!Yay!
Today: BOOOOOOO the bulb in one of my new, vintage repro, Noel Candle, outdoor lights burned a hole right through the plastic flame.

Making snowflakes in the cubicle is a pleasant way to spend my 30 minute break at work but loses all excitement at home.

Is the tree losing too many needles?

It's too hot to think of Christmas. Poop.

It's A Wonderful Life-HeeHaw, Buffalo Girls won't you come out tonight, HOTDOG!

I LOVE this film! I especially love to watch it with others who *heart* it as much as I do.
My sibs and I pretty much know the film word for word and watching it puts me closer to them.
So if you are up to watching it, give me call. No, I don't recite along outloud, teehee.

Of course A Christmas Story is right alongside IAWL. After all those marathons, yep, know every line and used to watching it over and over and over. Really would like to go to Cleveland to see he actual house.

Speaking of Christmas over and over...Rankin and Bass news. I wonder if these were the two that sold on Ebay back in 2005. Thanks to Henry for the update.

Recently my friend Edee has introduced me to other holiday films like Home for the Holidays. My mother and I watched that one together for the first time last year and really liked it. Must watch again this year.

I really can't stop reaching for The Apt, Darling and Lost in Translation between Christmas and New Year's.

TEETH, the movie

This is really a ridiculous film but I'm dying to see it only because most of it was filmed at my friend's house. She lives in this ultra cool, space age home with awesome built-ins:bar, stereo, intercom. I saw the trailer online and her pink bathroom was featured prominently. Uh, the movie is....just, uh, tres stupid, uber hilarious? Cringe.
But it's out! It actually made it to Sundance?
I just remember the tv news trucks parked in front of her place when it was rumored to be a big budget porno being filmed there. Funny stuff.

Toys

My mother always told us that paint on anything probably had lead (especially if it was painted red) and we shouldn't put it in our mouths, so we didn't. However, there was that one Christmas we hung one of those cheap, red, mesh stockings (still love these) to close to my baby sister's crib and the next morning she had red dye all over her face from putting it in her mouth. My mom freaked out! We got in trouble and heard horrifying stories of what could happen to Andie, brain damage, blindness, allergic reactions and death. YIPES! Nothing happened to her, she's now editing books in NYC. We played with Fisher Price Little People and seems to me they were the perfect size to choke on. We were told never to put them in our mouths or we'd choke and then DIE. I received my first FP Little People set at age two and still have it, little people, furniture and all. Never put them in my mouth. Ever get hit in the head with an old metal Tonka truck? It hurts! Turns into a huge welt and then bruises up, bad. I cried hard, my brother got yelled at, spanked, was told that doing such things could cause severe trauma to the head, coma and death! We grew up learning that you played with toys the way they were meant to be played with. If you didn't you could get hurt, you could sustain a severe injury and die. Our toys were never recalled or banned. We still have those deathtraps too. Our mother was a bit on the dramatic side to drive a point home but it worked.


Remember Super Elastic Bubble Plastic? We were never allowed to play with the stuff but it intrigued me. Most Wham-O stuff did. I only played on a slip and slide once in my life. It was at a slumber party and it wasn't what I had expected. My mother was right, you could fall wrong, break something, like your neck and die. I got a bruised arm and my elbow hit the ground in that funny bone way, OUCH! Not fun. Well, the fun came watching other kids take near fatal falls and laugh at them. I digress. So, my mom thought it was too dangerous to play with the plastic. What if you ingested what was in the straw?! You could die. So I've never done Super Elastic Bubble Plastic. In fact, to this day, I don't think I'd ever play with Super Elastic Bubble Plastic (no chance of something like that being around) because it still seems rather precarious.

Happy St Nicholas Day!

Happy Birthday Sparky!

Monkey Xmas

Stockings are up!

I go to peppermint pieces during December! Yippee!
So, St Nicks day is 12/6, get your stockings up and get a surprise in your stocking on the morning of the 6th!

Remembering chilly mornings and a toasty living room where we'd try and catch the WGN cartoons before school.

We had those old mesh stockings with our names on them in felt letters. They were simple and cheap and I don't know how they seemed to last year after year. The site of those stocking kicked off our holiday hyper-excitement and there was no stopping us once they were out.

I remember our holiday rituals between the ages of five and seven: toy browsing and wishlists, find Santa, maybe he's at the toy store downtown, maybe we need to drive to San Antonio and see him at Joskes but find him, Christmas cartoons, drive around to see lights, buying or making my baby brother his Christmas gift and trying hard to keep it a secret, packages in the mail, any knock at the door could mean more presents to put under the tree... I still feel I can work up to this hyper-holiday excitement. Perhaps it is good I am at work and forced to focus on other things.

Christmas 2007 begins

Our tree arrived from DeLong Farms on Friday!!!!!! Cool to arrive home from work and see this HUGE 7ft box leaning against the door. After we got it cut and situated in the house it spent 24 hours drinking water and falling out and making our home smell all citrus and pine like. Saturday evening was spent ushering in the season with pizza, family, eggnog and too many sweets. This tree seemed a bit fuller. Every year the tree has a different personality that pretty much dictates it's decor. Tonight was spent tidying up, taking out the recipes and hoping it gets tres colder. AWWWWW Christmas tree lights!

Still expecting Vermont Country Store goodies to finish decorating.

Miss you Mom! I loved being to spend time with you.