Daily Archives: December 24, 2010
Merry Christmas Eve . . .
Our Christmas Eve day started out with a relaxing morning sitting around drinking coffee and talking about our upcoming travels this year.
As it stands now we’ll probably leave here February 6th, which will be the 3rd anniversary of the beginning of our full-time life in 2008. We’ll first head over to Canyon Lake, near New Braunfels, TX to spend a few days visiting our friend Gina.
Then it’s on to Las Cruces, Tucson, Gila Bend, and then into Yuma around the 23rd of February to start ramping up to Nick Russell’s Western Gypsy Journal Rally that starts the 7th of March.
Everything after that is still kind of written in the wind. So we’ll see.
About 4 pm we left the rig for Brandi’s to pick up the mail, and then on to the storeroom to get some Christmas presents we had stored there.
Then about 5 we met Chris, Linda, and Piper at the King Food Chinese Restaurant in Webster.
Christmas Eve at King Food is a family tradition that we’ve done for somewhere between 20 to 25 years. We’re not exactly sure.
We’ve actually been eating there for 32 years, since December 1978 when we moved here from Alabama.
But this year was a little different since we now have to share Brandi with Lowell’s family in Oklahoma. This is why we had our King Food dinner with Brandi and family last Saturday night.
Any excuse to eat twice at King Food is a win-win.
After our usual great meal there, we headed over to Chris’ to open presents.
It’s always been a tradition in Chris’ family that they exchange personal presents on Christmas Eve, with Christmas morning reserved for presents left by Santa. But since Piper is 17 now, Santa doesn’t visit anymore.
Here’s Chris, Piper, and Linda, with Miss Piper checking out a new dress she received.
Piper gave her mother Linda this beautiful seahorse vase she made at school. There are actually two seahorses, one on each side. Piper did all this by hand.
And here’s a bowl Piper made about 3 years ago. A very talented young lady.
We left Chris’ about 7:45 planning on driving thru some neighborhoods to look at Christmas lights, another family tradition of ours on Christmas Eve. But it had started pouring down rain while we were inside which put a damper on the light viewing.
So after a short while we headed back to the rig, to finish up the evening with one of the great coffees that Linda had given us for Christmas.
We chose Cinnamon Coffee Cake, which being DeCaf, was perfect for nighttime drinking.
And to go with it, we had one of the gifts we got from Brandi and Lowell, a box of Williams-Sonoma Croissants.
These croissants are fantastic, so good, in fact, that they’re on the list of Oprah’s Favorites.
They come out looking like this, but they start as little frozen logs. There were two types in our box, plain and chocolate-filled. And both are delicious.
They’re shipped overnight, frozen in a Styrofoam container. You let them thaw out and rise for 9 hours and then pop them in the oven for about 15-20 minutes, or 13 minutes in our convection oven.
They come out crispy, flakey, and fantastic. And a perfect match for the coffee from Linda.
All in all, a beautiful end to a great day!
More tomorrow…
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Thought for the Day:If you give someone a piece of your mind, be sure you can get by with what’s left.
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