Food, Presents, and Food!

Christmas Eve...my sister-in-law had to work at 6:00 am but she'll be gettin' out early...Mom cooked breakfast this morning. In the meantime, I had to get started on dinner. This year was another recipe from the big book...Joy of Cooking. Pork shoulder with mustard and rosemary sauce with a side of buttered brussel sprouts. My bro helped with cutting all the veggies while I prepped the meat, seared it, and then put it in the pot. Five hour cook time. During those five hours me and mom watched a couple of movies while my dad and my brother fixed his door. I also got tomorrow's breakfast to work on...Ham and Vegetable Strata. Once Alison got back from work it was just in time for dinner. I got the sauce ready, completed the vegetables, and got ready to serve. It was quite delicious...pretty fantastic in fact...it was 6 pounds of pork and between the five of us we almost finished it! And in true tradition we all opened one present. I got really cute purse to replace the one that got stolen...Thanks Alison!! We then went into a great food coma and went straight to bed...

Christmas DAY! Woke up to put the strata in the oven...mom was already up getting the breakfast potatoes ready...very delicious. The rest of the kids got up and we had a great breakfast....then we got to open all the gifts. This year the parentals got the most presents. They deserve it! The rest of the day we chilled watching movies, skyping with Patty, calling family and friends, and continuous eating. Alison made us some sticky rice and green beans. But the best Christmas gift of all was a surprise visit from my peeps from L.A., the Alvarados! They were driving from Cali all the way to San Antonio in the same day. They're crazy and they decided to stop and surprise me when they knew I was in Tucson...It was great! I got to see their boys, 10 and 6, feed them some yummy dinner, and we laughed about the whole surprise. Thanks Patty for giving them the address! It was a great Christmas...I know it wasn't a great year for a lot of people...but I hope the Holidays pulled folks out of their slump to get them excited for the New Year 2010. I know I am...I'm gonna spend it with my best friend...great way to bring it in!!

Merry Christmas all!!

Christmas Eve Eve's 2009-Tucson

Well here we are on the eve of Christmas Eve. Truth is, I love Christmas Eve. It's more fun than Christmas day I think. The anticipation of Santa Clause! It was always such a big deal in our family back in the day since that's when we all get together to eat tamales, pop fireworks, drink, and get to open one gift. Now that we have new traditions as grown ups, I still love Christmas Eve. Here with my bro' we've started the tradition of making a big Christmas Eve dinner and then we get to open one gift. We'll watch corny Christmas movies and shows, and then wait for Christmas morning to eat a big breakfast and open the rest of the gifts.
Last few days I'm enjoying to days off sleeping late. We got to go to Old Tucson Studios-Hollywood of the West. Its an old west town built up for movies where John Wayne filmed three movies. It was interesting, not historically accurate, but cute. They have singing shows, play gun fights, and stunt shows. A beautiful day too...sunny a breezy 74 degrees. Its actually been awesome weather...60-70 degrees. We're waiting for snow, which I hope will get here. It's everywhere around us, except here in the Tucson valley. In the meantime, all we're doing is driving around going to packed stores, watching movies, and chilling out...
Loving it!

Christmas 2009-Tucson

Ahhhh....Christmas Vacation has begun! I'm sooo happy and excited. Had a rocky start considering my purse got stolen in Zilker Park while hanging out with my best friend and her kids last weekend. Rat bastards. The thieves, not the kids. 'Cept they can be rat bastards too, but that's another story.
So I had to deal with the ordeal of closing accounts, calling credit card companies, and feeling random paranoia. I wish those evil doer's nothing but what they'll get coming to them...Karma, baby. It happens.
So got to Tucson today. Was supposed to get here yesterday but my flight got canceled because a flock of birds flew in the plane and it had to emergency land. Yikes! So the second plane would'a came too late for me to get my connecting flight. Today started at 4:30 am...cab to airport at 4:52 am, checked in at 5:13, in security line till 5:55, and just made it board the plane. It was close.
But I'm here now and anticipating all of the great food we'll be cooking and eating. Parentals will get here tomorrow night. But tonight we eat Korean marinated short ribs....yea!!!