Gone to the Dogs

         The National Dog Show came on as I was sitting in my recliner in near turkey-coma. My dog sat looking up at me wondering why he could not have the things I had eaten (too many jalapenos in the dressing). With all the treats the dogs were getting from their handlers, he was probably wondering why I was not slipping him a treat every time he moved.

         Nothing about the dog show interested me. The extreme to which dogs have been bred to specific purposes has created some genuinely ugly dogs. The announcers kept pointing out that the viewer needed to “imagine the dog doing what it was bred to do when judging from home.” I could not imagine some of the dogs, especially some of the terriers, being bred to do anything but scare rats and tasteful tourists out of the village.

         Seeing these coiffed canines made me happy with my mutt. A bath now and then, a few toys from the discount store and we are set. You will find no special products or handlers around here.

         As much as I was not interested, I could not turn away. Much like NASCAR, which is most fun when wrecks disrupt the race, I kept waiting for the Rottweilers, Dobermans, and German Shepherds to get into it - or for the Great Dane to snap up that ugly toy breed winner for a snack. I could not turn away. Alas, these dogs are too well trained and the choke chains the handlers use keep them under control. No fights. No inappropriate sniffing. Nothing exciting.

         Just calm voices talking about how wonderful each breed is for what it does.  And there were many commercials for pet food and pet toys. One feature even advocated taking dogs to work. My energetic dog would cause chaos. There were no ads for animal tranquilizers.

         Instead of calm, knowledgeable voices, I want Fred Willard, in character from Best in Show, to analyze the proceedings. That hilariously inappropriate chatter coupled with the behind-the-scenes antics of the various dog owners/handlers fills the imagination with what might actually be happening in the parts of the show edited out so that the show ends just in time to cut to the football game.

         I must confess, this is at least the third year in a row I have watched the show. As much as I wish NBC would take a cue from the movie and broaden the antics of the show, I doubt they will. However, I will likely keep watching from year to year – hoping sometime life will imitate art.

Thanksgiving Menu 2012

         For the last few years, I have spent the week of Thanksgiving preparing food to cover 30 people. I seriously do not know how to cook for one. I simply cannot imagine food on that miniscule scale. This year, though I consciously scaled back the menu: I only planned to feed myself and my roommate. Still, few traditional Thanksgiving dishes can be prepared for only one or two people – and I do traditional (at least according to my family) each year.

         This year’s menu included a smallish turkey (under 20 lbs), cornbread dressing, cranberry salad, sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole (tradition with my roommate’s family),and sun-dried tomato corn muffins. Desert included pumpkin cheesecake and a double layer pumpkin pie.

         Since I learned how to brine a turkey a few years ago, it has become my standard practice to load the turkey into several garbage bags (NEW, not used) then covered with a salt/citrus brine. I stuff fresh citrus fruits and an onion into the turkey to flavor it during cooking. The other dishes are pulled together with my supernatural nose – I know when the dish smells right (particularly the dressing). It makes it almost impossible to ever share a recipe.

         Now that Thanksgiving is done, it is time to start planning for the New Year’s feast – good luck foods from around the world.

 

What's Right in My World

         I am easily amused by the humor I find in human foible (resulting in “warning” labels on packaging because of lawsuits stemming from a lack of common sense). Those labels and other silliness bring a bit of happiness to me and to my friends. Focusing on such triviality comes easily in most of our lives. On Thanksgiving, though, we take the time to reflect on what we value in our lives, what means more than a quick chuckle.

         I am blessed that my life is filled with joy sustained by the important people and things in my life.

         I am blessed by a small group of valued friends. We do not talk to each other or see each other nearly as much as I would like to, but I know they are there when I need them.

         I am blessed to have a career that truly matters to me. Waking up every day knowing I get to do something I love and interact with co-workers who are equally passionate about their work keeps me energized.

         I am blessed by family, near and far, who love me and who have made me the person I am today.

         I am blessed by an internalized faith that keeps me grounded no matter how frazzled I get by the chaotic world around me. Having a spiritual retreat against stress of the world allows me peace.

         I am wishing everyone who stumbles up my simple reflection a Happy Thanksgiving, and I send you off with a prayer: May your life be filled with every blessing you need.

Holiday Minimalism

         As Thanksgiving approaches, whether to decorate for Christmas or not has reentered my internal discussion. I have a miniature tree I decorated a few years ago that I stick in the closet each year on Epiphany and pull out sometime after Thanksgiving. I used to decorate each room (including each bathroom) with a theme/color for that room. Lately, I have considered such effort a waste of time and resources.

         One miniature fake tree.

         One stocking.

         That has been all. I went from excess to extreme minimalism.

         I do not throw a huge holiday party (since someone squeezed my toothpaste – totally another story). Not many people come through my house during the holiday season, so little reason exists for me to go to the effort of decorating to any extreme. I do not enjoy the decorations personally; they are just too energetic for my personality.

         I am that bland.

         This year, though, I have a roommate and maybe I should do something more festive to make him feel better about his first year away from his family at the holidays. After all, I have boxes of goodies for decoration in storage in my garage.

         Unfortunately, I would have to take it down later.

         Even though the work involved takes time I do not have, something about this holiday season has me looking forward to it. In years past I truly enjoyed getting into all the decorations and that spark in the back of my mind flickers now and then.

         I just hope that the giant snake that sometimes crawls around my garage has not bedded up in any of the decoration boxes for the winter.

 

 

Chip Boy

On one of my favorite radio shows a few days ago, a prominent philosopher/historian discussed the essential freedoms that built our nation. Each freedom brought with it an accompanying responsibility. I was most struck by the statement, "Freedom of speech comes with the responsibility to listen." In a world in which volume and dismissive insistence have become the norm, listening has become viewed as a sign of weakness rather than the proof of power it embodies. Every major issue we face today would benefit from a good round of listening. One of those issues much in the news and much on my mind is immigration. Given the holiday we celebrate this week and the history of the nation, the timeliness could not fall much better. Friday night I went to one of my regular hangouts - mostly because I wanted chips and queso. As is common in the food service industry, the staff has mostly changed since I first started going there regularly about ten years ago. I thought about one of my favorites, who I referred to as "chip boy" because his job was to bring the chips and salsa to the table whenever new patrons came into the restaurant, when the new "chip boy" started my evening. With the former server we ate so many chips just because we wanted him to bring more chips to the table. Over the years, I only had the chance to talk to him once beyond asking for more chips. He was in the same bar as I was one night and we had the chance to sit and visit a while. I actually learned his name (but in the ensuing years have forgotten it again). The conversation we had, though, stuck with me because it was so different than what I expected. Given his job as the "chip boy," I did not know what to really expect from him. I did not know his level of education or his career aspirations. I did know I liked him to bring me chips. As we visited, he began to share his dreams of returning to Mexico with all he had learned by working in a restaurant in the United States so that he could open his own, successful restaurant. That revelation stunned me. As much as I have enjoyed the trips I have taken to Mexico, the idea of someone wanting to go back (and open a restaurant) floored me. The message so often delivered in the media and by immigration opponents is that the immigrants only want to invade the country and raid the wealth. Yet the only wealth this young man wanted was a wealth of knowledge so he could be a better businessman when he returned home. I have always claimed to seek justice for immigrants which I took to mean a rational immigration policy that allowed those who could and had the will to come take the jobs available for them. In my mind, that translated to permanence. That was my thinking and in its own way proved as inaccurate as the fear mongering promoted by those who oppose immigration. Chip boy and many subsequent conversations have proven me wrong. The United States is not the eternal refuge our own vanity holds it to be, but merely a stopping point on the journey for many. Continuing the conversation toward a meaningful and workable policy means including those who have come here using legal means, those who have come here in violation of the law, and those who would yet come here - and not just those from south of the United States, but from around the world (undocumented persons speak hundreds of languages, not just Spanish - some of them are even white). We do our nation immeasurable harm when we rely only on our own knowledge which is, as I found out personally, often based on our own assumptions rather than reality. No matter what the political affiliation, we all know we have to do something about immigration; automatically demonizing anything the other side suggests as an idea will never solve the problem. Neither does leaving the voices of those most affected out of the solution. If history has taught us anything, it should be those lessons. As we celebrate Independence Day this year, let us reflect on those things that have worked to build the nation, none of which are found it the partisan battles fought over fringe ideology (of which BOTH sides are equally guilty). The freedom of speech comes with the responsibility to listen. Immigration is only one policy, brought to the forefront of my mind as I remembered Chip Boy, but one that could definitely benefit from our exercise of the responsibilities built into the freedoms we celebrate.

Unlisted

I genuinely appreciate Twitter for bringing me daily news digested into 140 characters or fewer, but I swear, if the “top” lists continue I am going to blow a few characters myself. I think the news people come up with the lists just because it is an otherwise slow news week. Do I really need them to tell me what are the 10 cutest animal pictures of the last year? Or the 10 best tweets? Or the 10 biggest celebrity scandals? Or 10 worst fashion disasters? And the lists go on.

I do not read those new stories when they are singular, much less pluralized into tens. I have sufficient grasp of the trivial without the assistance of such year-end lists.

Some sites are begging for my resolutions for the new year.

They do not really care that I, like every other American, want to be fitter, healthier, etc.

What I really want is to make fewer typos on my iPhone. Big fingers, old eyes, and a tiny screen were never meant to go together. Editing is not glamorous, but its importance on twitter and IM exceeds that even of longer compositions. One unfortunate autocorrect (easier to blame the machine than personal carelessness) stands out even more in the brevity of such communication. If everyone proofread before sending, websites would go out of business. Somehow I doubt that everyone will start proofreading tweets and texts, so we will continue to have the entertainment (real or fake).

So I have decided to be anti-list as the year comes to an end. I have my list of unaccomplished tasks on my winter break; I do not need any more lists in my life right now. I move into 2012 unencumbered with the weight of expectation.  No years have passed without personal accomplishments regardless of my resolutions. I will go forward and make the most out of the year and opportunities as they arise.

Unlisted, unresolved, but motivated. Come on 2012.

Clever New Uses

The barrage of emails with holiday tips did not stop with the arrival of the holidays. They have continued offering sage bits of advice, or things I could buy at a discount with sage bits of advice. One in particular caught my attention with the subject line: Clever New Uses for The Holidays.

While I, for the most part, shrewdly resisted the appeal of the various pitches, I could not turn down investigating what new uses someone had found for the holidays. Considering it came from a popular magazine that regularly presents new uses for common items, I figured that if anyone could do it, they would.

Opening the email proved disappointing because the headline had nothing to do with the content. There were numerous ways of using holiday packing and wrapping. There were recipes for combining common leftovers into more appealing dishes. There were tips for what to do with those partially used holiday-scented candles.

But not one new use for any holiday.

Despite the disappointment, I realized that Boxing Day has me pretty much holidayed out. I do not know how many more clever uses for holidays I could handle at this point; I am satisfied with the uses they already have. I just have to recover in time for New Year’s Eve.

And I have an entire year to come up with clever new uses for the holidays and give that magazine an article that lives up to its headline.

Christmas 2011

I did not believe the Christmas forecasts when they started coming in. No, the forecast did not call for snow in south Texas. That only happens once every few lifetimes and we had that once a few years ago. The weather forecast actually called for what equals winter weather in south Texas – chilly with chances of rain. The chilly part is most certainly correct, but the end of the day will tell us whether the rain held true.

Work, in several forms, got in the way of the holiday cards the way I normally do them. Instead of 96, this year there were exactly zero that went through the mail. I did not even create a fancy electronic card. If the motto for my Christmas this year was on a t-shirt, it wouldn’t even make the t-shirt. I would be, “I attended Christmas 2011 and all I got was this lousy blog post.”

Behind the appearance of griping, the “lousy blog post” means I am busy enough and loving what I  am doing that I did not take the time to send out the many Christmas cards I normally do.  The blog posts also came in the way of Advent devotionals – one written for each day of the season – that is continuing into Christmas and in some form through the church year calendar on my other blog.

Doing the daily Bible study and actually meditating on the passages and then writing a reflection has done more to prepare me for Christmas this year than in a long time.

I am not at all giddy about Christmas; I am ready for the holiday to kick of a new season of work and opportunity.

Beyond preparing for the holiday in a different way, I made some major changes in my life this year that fundamentally shifted how I spend my time. The changes led to positive, measurable output in writing and reading and health, so I do not look back on any of the changes with regret. I write from time to time about technology – especially when it fails.

Some of my changes have involved changing the technology I have in my life – namely getting rid of cable television and actually spending more time working on my iPad than on one of my computers because, while possible, it is harder to multi-task on the tablet than on a computer or laptop. All that is for naught when I have the MacBook Pro, Dell Laptop, and iPad all going at the same time – which I sometimes still do - though I am working at only using one device at a time.

2011 truly has been a transformational year for me and it culminated in the preparations for Christmas.

Blah

The company at Thanksgiving dinner was wonderful, but the food was, by my standards, a great disappointment. The challenge has been to figure out what I would have done differently.  Going into the meal, I was concerned that people would find the food too spicy for their liking; instead the food came out bland. After going through the consideration of making new foods for Thanksgiving, I decided to stick with the traditional foods I have cooked for years.

Because I have made these dishes many times, there was no excuse for them turning out the way they did.

I have gone over everything I could imagine that could cause the dishes to come out the way they did.

I purchased the ingredients just days before preparing the meal, so everything was fresh.

I did not have a cold or sinus problems affecting my sense of taste or smell.

Still, something had to be going on for every dish to come out so bland tasting that I was embarrassed to serve it. Of course, I did not know it was so bland until I actually took it out of the oven to serve it.

Everyone who ate the meal said it was wonderful and thanked me many time for having them over, but after tasting the food myself, I am convinced they were just being polite. Despite their polite assurances, my search continues to get to the origin of blah.

Tryptophan Dreams

If I judge the goodness of a meal by the silence around the table, I think today was fairly successful. After my friends and I filled our plates, we sat in silence as we made our way through the different dishes. After having a few pieces of pie, we settled into a post-meal stupor watching football and different YouTube videos.

This is such a nice way to spend the holiday. Ample food to share with friends and then just hanging out is the way to spend the holiday. Cooking and sharing the table is one of my favorite activities - and is made even better when I get to share with friends I do not get to see very often. In spite of the stress that often comes with the holidays, the chance to spend quality time with with friends and family.

I like it for the chance to spend quality time in the kitchen whipping up some of my favorite foods that are not always the best for me. Even thought I do not eat nearly enough turkey for the tryptophan to truly be an issue, I enjoy it for the opportunity to blame it for an afternoon nap while the games play on in the background.

So will belly full and dishes washed, I nap and am thankful.

Cooking with My Besties

This week I purchase an extra bottle of dishwashing liquid so I could run the dishwasher as often as I needed while preparing the Thanksgiving dinner for friends and family. Even running the dishwasher every time I get it filled, I never seem to have the dishes I want to use, though anyone who has ever been in my kitchen knows I have more than enough dishes to stock a small restaurant.

It is just that there is always the one pan I REALLY want to use that happens to be in mid-cycle in the dishwasher.

Some dishes just seem to be best for cooking, stirring, mixing, storing, etc. I have my favorite knives, spoons, mixing bowls as well as my favorite appliances. All of them work together to make cooking as much fun as it is for me. And with the holiday preparations in full swing, I am making the most of them in everything I do.

Thanksgiving Planning

As much as I do not enjoy Halloween, I look forward to Thanksgiving. Maybe because so much of the day centers around food and I love to cook. Each year I prepare a meal for friends and family - anyone who is available to come by. Preparation begins weeks in advance as I plan out the menu and begin to play with the recipes to make them just what I want.

This year, I have been struggling with the menu. I normally do a traditional turkey and dressing with other traditional holiday foods. This year, I want to do something different, but I am having trouble coming up with the right food that celebrates the holiday but breaks tradition. I have considered doing beef since we are in Texas. I have considered game meats since that would have been widely available during the time of the first Thanksgiving.

With just days to go, the menu is blank and no groceries have been purchased. Normally cooking takes me four days. I need to get this underway shortly. The simplest thing to do would be to make a traditional meal. The stores are overflowing with those groceries.

Even if I do go with the traditional foods, my habit is to modify the recipes somewhat, so I have a few ideas how those recipes will change. Still there is only limited time to pull it all together. With that in mind, I will be spending time meandering the aisles at the grocery store, seeking inspiration - to either do classic traditional, or to do something creative.

Either way, I look forward to many hours in the kitchen in the next week doing what I can to show my appreciation for those friends and family who are joining me for the holiday.

Halloween Hater

No one ever seems to get why I am so anti-Halloween. Maybe I am just a curmudgeon, but that would mean I started being curmudgeonly in early childhood. Even then, I never saw a point in the holiday and could not understand why others put so much energy into a holiday with absolutely no meaningful basis.

Now, too far into adulthood, I understand some of the traditional basis for the holiday and do, to some degree, participate in a personal Dia de los Muertos recognition. I still do not see the point behind the massive Halloween celebrations that take place. I have made a few trips to the Halloween costume parade in downtown Austin. I wonder how there any business in the city reports any productivity with the extensive preparation many of the costumes require.

I still do not get why so many people spend a year preparing for the next year's costume or host the biggest party of the year on the weekend around the holiday. The rest of the year has so many other days that deserve the recognition heaped upon Oct. 31. There is Hug a Friend Day, Mother Goose Day, Johnny Appleseed Day (not to be confused with Arbor Day the next month), and even Elvis Presley's Birthday. Each day has so much more relevance than Halloween. Friends, trees, music, stories all give us so much more than Halloween.

Halloween gives us 34,000 Lady Gaga wannabes.

Stomach aches.

Cavities.

Nothing good comes from it.

At least it's not Valentine's Day.

Nowhere Corral

I am taking full advantage of spring break by doing strenuous physical activities. A couple of my friends also had Monday off, so we decided to go for a hike in Pedernales Falls State Park, a park not too far from Austin. We followed the river for a while and then connected with the main hiking trail in the park.

At one point we started to wander down a side trail with hopes that it would lead us to a cliff where we could look down on the river flowing below. We wandered a ways, but there was no sign of anything remotely resembling a cliff. On that detour though, we came across and old homestead with only the majority of the fireplace remaining. Even so, the time had washed away so much of the packing around the stones that it was a pile of stones, that continued to maintain the shape of the fire pit and the chimney.

Nearby we saw an old corral, with the beams sagging, often piled on top of one another instead of spaced up the posts.

We  traveled a bit farther down the trail and came upon some stone fences.

The construction of the fences really amazed me, as they followed the natural contours of the landscape, so the fence did not have to be exceptionally high, but connected to the shape of the land it made an effective barricade.

Though the house was gone and the fences were in grave disrepair, the level of effort and purpose behind the building of those structures amazed me. I cannot imagine how long it took to gather the rock, haul them to the right spaces and then lay them in - both for the fence and the fireplace - so that held their shape despite weather and time and stubborn trees growing up in the middle. The images of the corral especially stayed with me. Seemingly in the middle of nowhere, stood a circular pen with no clear entrance, but the effort to create it demonstrates some genuine purpose behind it, and while it seems in the middle of nowhere today, at one time it was somewhere quite important.

Seeking the Christmas Spirit

We have already reached the teens of December, but my mind keeps thinking we should be somewhere about early October. My iTunes keeps popping up Christmas tunes when I put on the d.j. function. Cards keep arriving in the mail. All around me is decorated.

My October brain’s first thought is, “it’s too early! Stop it!”

I organized the Advent devotionals for church and even ran the sound board for the Christmas cantata.

I designed my cards for this year - and even sent them to the printer (and picked them up). I just have not managed to mail them yet.

I have already done much of my Christmas shopping, and for those things I have not purchased, I have a pretty good list. I have not wrapped any and at least 21 need to be wrapped by Saturday morning.

Still, the Christmas spirit keeps eluding me no matter what I do to find it. Perhaps by the time I have made the drive to Kansas and enjoyed some days off work with my family up there, I will find the sprit. I would really hate to miss the holidays because the year went too fast.

Card Me

This morning I woke up to an unusual alarm going off on my phone. It was not the clock radio or the normal phone chimes. It was the alarm reminding me an important event on my calendar.

But why at 4:00 a.m. on a Thursday?

What could be so important?

Christmas cards!

As long as I have iCal and am using Apple products - or until I change the settings - I will be reminded three weeks before Thanksgiving to start working on my address list for Christmas cards. Since I mail 60 to 90 cards each year (I am single handedly trying to keep the postal service in operation), three weeks has turned out to be the magical time it takes to email people and update current mailing addresses.

Yes, I use email to get mailing addresses.

It is faster than sending a teaser card to see if I can collect a return address stamp from the USPS.

Holiday cards are one special way of making contact that still has a personal touch. While I do have a spreadsheet and use mail-merge to print the labels for the envelopes, I still sign each card and I send out a variety of cards each year and hand select the one that goes to each address. I do not simply pick one design, one-size-fits-all, and push them in the mail. I take the time to write a personal note as well as include my standard “Christmas Letter” though anyone would be sorely pressed to take my holiday letter seriously. It is early November and I already have the opening paragraph composed.

Prepare to be offended.

Maybe I should take some of the personal sensibilities of my recipients into consideration. 

Then again, my letter is about my life. They can tell me the dull details of their child’s finger painting. I shall turn the year into an adventure that bites.

Prepare to be offended.

Take Me To the Water

I am not entirely certain what it was about Easter Sunday this year that made it so unusually special as they go, but from the waking up until now almost bedtime, it has been one of those days touched by special moments that are memorable. The most memorable, of course is the special Easter service at church.

Every year we have a different routine on Easter Sunday with egg and scavenger hunts for the younger ones and a longer time to visit and socialize for the adults. Sprinkled in there is the breakfast provided by the deacons of the church and the normal church preparations of the day.

This year’s worship service also included the baptism of two adults with very moving testimonies read to the gathered congregation. One of the two gentlemen only has one leg, so I got the opportunity to be in the water to help support him as he stood to be baptized and help the preacher get him in and out of the water. Other than my own baptism over thirty years ago, I had never participated so closely in one. The whole experience gave me goosebumps.

And it was not just because the water was freezing.

Baptism in a Baptist church has always been a particularly moving experience even as a congregant observing the practice, but being a part of it took the whole thing to an entirely new level. I am going to have to think on it for a few days to understand the full scope of how much it meant to me, but I do know that I came out of the water feeling even more strongly about the power of baptism as not only a symbol of faith, but as a transformative even in a person’s life.

Our practice is for the choir to sing “Take Me To the Water” as the pastor gets situated in the baptistry to introduce the importance of baptism an all that it signifies. After observing the water first hand, that hymn will carry even more force the next time I hear it.

Resolution 2010

Last year I only made one resolution: take better care of myself. For the most part that resolution was successful. I have taken significantly better care of myself in emotional and spiritual ways; however, I have failed dramatically when it comes to physical care of my body. I began the year with that the primary focus of the three and ended the year realizing just how important it is.

Emotionally, I have realized that for many of the things that used to bug me to no end, I really do not care. Saying I simply do not care carries a harshness that is really most accurate. I do not care about pleasing all people all the time. I do not care if my every action does not fully ingratiate itself to others. I do not care if my time frame is different than yours. I do not care if your feelings were hurt by my honesty. Emotionally, I am going to take care of myself.

Spiritually, I began the year thinking I was most healthy in this area, but through the continued study of the Minor Prophets and then into the Apocrypha, I learned so much more about my own foundations in social justice and its roots in Biblical teaching. That combined with my selection for the AWAB council forced me to continue to grow in my thoughts about justice and the role of religion and my personal faith in those endeavors. The activities of the future continue to influence my thinking in this area as I read and study further what it is the Bible tells us about right treatment of all people.

Physically, though, I completely failed in any attempts to care for myself. I gained 20 pounds in the year. I have not exercised. I have not been careful with my eating. So for 2010, I have to be much more focused on my physical health. I have joined a gym, but I actually have to go. I have to spend the time preparing fully healthy meals all the time and not letting myself slip into settling for fast food because I don’t already have something prepared. Where I have given time to study, I now have to dedicate additional time to my physical health by exercising, eating well, and resting.

My resolution for 2010 continues my resolution from last year, but with the full focus of care for myself, and by caring for myself, I can do more to care for others.

Four Christmases?

The movie “Four Christmases” seemed like the most absurd of titles. Who in their right mind would have four Christmases.

I cannot say for certain that I am in my right mind, but this year, four Christmases is exactly what I am having.

Christmas # 1 took place two weekends before Christmas with my parents, and my brothers and their families. It began the festive season with a fun day seeing my parents and nephews.

Christmas # 2 took place a week later in Kansas with my uncle, aunt, cousins and their families. R. and I drove all the way to Wichita for that event, which was as usual, side-splittingly fun. The entire event is so unpredictable, that we can do little else but laugh and have fun.

Christmas # 3 took place with R.’s family in Florida. For the first time in my life, I traveled to spend the holiday with the family of someone I love. It was also the first time I met his family in person. Through the wonders of Facebook, I had been in some conversation with one of his brothers and his sister, but the holiday was actually the first time I met them in person, so that stress coupled with the holiday, but it did not diminish the good time of the holiday. I am looking forward to another fun weekend vacation with his family in a few weeks at Disney World.

Christmas # 4 will take place on New Year’s Eve, as R. and I have our time to exchange gifts. I am looking forward to this intimate time together as we exchange those things we purchased for each other. I have never given so much thought or had so much fun buying for someone else, but most of all, I look forward to that time together with him, starting our own traditions.

If the first three Christmases are any indication, this is exactly the way the holidays are meant to be. Nothing has been extraordinary by way of expense, but every gift has been thoughtful and the focus has been on relationships. With my cousins and our $1 gifts, with R.’s family and some “getting to know you” gifts, and with R. and I, the first meaningful exchange of gifts together and the time to share with one another.

I have never been a fan of the holidays, but if this year is is any indication of want can be, I may grow to enjoy them more and more.

Label FAIL

I really should not pay so much attention to labels on products, but in looking over the bottle of margarita mix I won in the work holiday drawing, I noticed the misspelling below. I found it particularly funny because on the day before I was lecturing high school students about homophones and sure enough, there is a homophone error on the back of the bottle of margarita mix.

I wonder if the person who was printing out the labels maybe had had a few tests runs of the product before setting the printer for the bottles to run through.

Better yet, the mix is actually "Diet Margarita Mix". It has 80% fewer calories than regular margarita mix.

Yes, it was the company Christmas lunch and we are having a push on fitness and healthy eating throughout the workplace, but diet margarita mix?

I wonder if they sell "Diet Jose Cuervo" to go with that?