Christmas Day plus three...

Christmas comes, Christmas goes.... and every year it slips by in a heart-beat. The decorations that I arranged (and re-arranged) around the house during the first week of November seem as if they haven't been up for seven days, much less for seven weeks.

We had friends here on Christmas Day for dinner..... J & L came over with a huge bowl of tossed fresh greens sprinkled with bits of every sort of vegetable, nuts and cheese to make it a "great big salad" as the first course for our holiday meal. My husband made his 'killer mashed potatoes' and his 'big fat Greek stuffing.' I made my somewhat-famous salmon-crabcakes. I've made those for quite a few Christmas dinners along the way here. When Miss C was younger, I made them in the shape of Christmas trees, and one year C helped me make them and she had the idea that little green peas tucked into the 'branches' of the tree-shaped cakes would be the perfect touch.... and that's just what she did.... she used a toothpick to press the peas into the mixture so they wouldn't fall off. Everyone smiled when we brought those plates into the dining room that Christmas.... she wouldn't let anyone else into the kitchen that year because she wanted the green pea-decorated cakes to be a surprise.

The cows that showed up in our yard on Christmas Eve morning came back again that afternoon.... 14 of them, all from a neighbor's pasture on the other side of the hills here. I guess one cow got out and the rest of them followed.... and they ended up right outside our windows. My husband stood out on our porch taking photos and the cows just looked up at us as if we were intruding into their space, rather than the other way around. My husband got the cows out of our yard and down the hill, and after they got back to their own property, we didn't see them again. Thankfully, they didn't break any of our picket fences that are around the property here.

My husband and I opened up our gifts on Christmas night, way after dinner, and after J & L said good-night. Books and ornaments... always on the Christmas lists around here.... with a few surprises from QVC tossed into the mix. (Note to myself: No more gadgets from the QVC channel for my husband.)

The day after Christmas, we took the big tree down.... it had gotten dried out and it just had to go. I took down the ornaments, my husband took the lights off.... and then he carried it out into one of the pastures where the birds and small animals are probably already nesting in it. Once again, I asked my husband the same question that I ask every Christmas as I'm about to clean up all the needles that drop from the 'real' tree..... "Don't you think we could find an artificial tree that looks like a real tree?" His answer is always the same: "No way." (I try not to roll my eyes as I get the broom and the vacuum.)

The day after that.... was it just yesterday?..... I started taking down the rest of the Christmas decorations... into the boxes went the Santas and the angels and the little elves........ into the closet went all the table-top trees. The top shelf of that storage closet now looks like a multi-colored forest... the red tree with gold ornaments, the blue tree with silver ornaments, the green tree with the Lenox ornaments, the silver tree with the fruit & vegetable ornaments, the white porcelain tree with the red birds (that Sweet Pea just loved), the red-twig tree with the crystal baubles, the white sparkling tree with the snowmen ornaments, the green feather tree with the Santas and glass candy canes, the pink tree with all the pink ornaments, the gold tree with all the beaded ornaments...... what color tree would you like? I probably have just that very tree....

The only tree left standing now is the 1950s aluminum tree... it's still on the angel-table in the living room..... I don't mind leaving that tree up for New Year's Eve because of its silver color, and most of my New Year's Eve decorations are bright silver. Speaking of which..... we invited J&J and J&G over for dinner on the 31st. We're "borrowing" H&K's New Year's theme from last year..... we asked them to come over at 4:30 in the afternoon. At 5:00, we'll have dinner and celebrate Midnight in London...... at 6:00, we'll have dessert and celebrate Midnight in Paris.

By the time Midnight in Texas comes along, our friends will have probably gone home because everyone will be tired from family visits with children and grandchildren.... and then my husband and I will most likely find the TV channel that is showing NYC's Time Square.... and we will watch "The Ball" as it descends at midnight, we'll see Dick Clark wishing everyone a Happy New Year (and we'll remember how young he always looked)... and we'll talk about the days when Guy Lombardo & his band played at The Waldorf on New Year's Eve and the music was perfect and the couples were dressed up and dancing and getting misty-eyed when the clock struck midnight.

New Year's Eve with Guy Lombardo..... at the Waldorf in New York City.... me sitting on the floor in my grandmother's living room, with my Aunt Dolly on the sofa... watching the dancing couples, oooh-ing and aaah-ing over the gowns and the jewelry.... and having a little dish of ice cream or an Italian pastry at midnight.... both Aunt Dolly and me... whispering so we wouldn't wake up grandma and grandpa as they slept upstairs.

I get so sappy at Christmas. Ditto for New Year's Eve.

Christmas Eve morning.

Woke up to a rainy cloudy drippy day here...... and I'm not complaining about the rain. Whatever rain we have now will not only fill up the ponds that have been empty since the summer's drought, but the rain will bring the wildflowers next Spring. And this past Spring's lack of bluebonnets and paintbrushes and wild daisies was enough to have anyone wishing and hoping for raindrops falling from the sky.

When I went outside to take care of the chickens this morning, I saw that we'd had visitors during the night. There are a few huge piles of cow poop out there in the yard-- and right close to the house and the cottage. I'm guessing that the roaming cows that we saw on our walk yesterday morning found their way up our hill at some point and were grazing on our property before wandering off elsewhere. There's no mistaking a pile of cow poop...... I saw the first one from the porch before I even stepped out into the yard. I'm just amazed that the cows were that close to the house and we didn't see or hear them. Don't cows sleep at night? Maybe they were out there early this morning, before we got up.

This is the second day in a row that I haven't let the chickens out into the yard. With the wet and cloudy weather we've had for the past two days, I don't think they've minded being kept inside the coop and the little fenced-in yard just outside the coop. I don't trust the hawks in weather like this...... we lost too many chickens to the hawks from the first group of hens that we had, and most of the attacks were on cloudy drippy days. And the other day, I thought we lost Scarlett. I was on the phone talking to my cousin L and as she was telling me about her lack of Christmas spirit this year (because of a bad back) I was walking around the property looking for Scarlett. Around and around the house and cottage and barn I went, looking underneath bushes and plants while saying Mmmm-hmmm and Oh my! to my cousin every few seconds.

After the second walk around the house and the cottage, I had resigned myself to the fact that Scarlett was gone.... and I silently cursed the hawks for (once again) taking the best of the best hens. Back to the coop I went, still Mmmm-hmmm-ing to my cousin, and there was Scarlett, standing by the gate of the coop. As I went got up close to her, she plopped herself down by my feet and I scooped her up in my arms and carried her Royal Henness into the coop. I named that hen well..... she has a mind of her own, and she's always the last one into that coop.


Lots of last-minute things to do today...... getting things ready for tonight's dinner (just the two of us)..... and then my to-do list for tomorrow's Christmas Dinner with friends. Tonight we will open up the gifts in our Treasure Boxes..... there are a dozen gifts for each of us, from my cousin F....... she played Treasure Box Santa in a big way this year. I put in one Treasure Box gift for my husband, and I'm guessing he has one for me also. I made my cousin F a Treasure Box this year, the first for her...... and this Christmas Eve is our second Treasure Box year. My friend V has been Treasure Boxing for decades now.... I will have to remember to ask V if she started that tradition on her own for her kids and husband, or if she and her husband had Treasure Boxes when they were kids also. V starts making her Treasure Box announcements right after Thanksgiving: "Don't forget the Treasure Boxes! Don't forget the Treasure Boxes!"

Christmas Eve morning...... and lots to do. Jingle bells........

Herbie

That's the name of a little brown and white beagle that was wandering around the properties here this past Saturday morning. Our friend J called here to let us know the dog was headed our way, and I went outside to make sure the chickens weren't going to ripped to pieces by a stray and hungry dog.

When I got outside, there was the beagle, tail wagging, nose to the ground, heading right towards me. On the road was our friend J, in his truck and keeping the dog in sight. Into our driveway came J, into our yard came the beagle. Looking at that thin little dog with the plastic collar, we both figured he had been let go by his owners. All too often, people who no longer want their pets will drive them to country roads and just set them loose, as has happened here so many times. My husband and I have taken three stray dogs to the local shelter, hoping they would find good homes.

The beagle was friendly enough, but seemed thin, and he wasn't a clean-smelling dog, which made us think he'd been traveling for a while. J picked him up and brought him to the shelter. Before he left, my husband had come out and I was hoping that he wouldn't want to keep that lost little dog. I think beagles are very cute, but it's not the breed that I would choose as a house-pet.

Off to the shelter went J and the beagle....... and they found out that the shelter is closed on the weekends. (On Saturdays? Closed? That should be the busiest day there!) But closed it was..... and J was set to be out of town on Saturday and Sunday.... so he brought the dog to the vet's office, thinking to board him for the weekend, with the plan of taking him back to the shelter on Monday.

While he was at the vet, one of the other clients there in the waiting room seemed to recognize the beagle....... told J exactly where that dog belonged..... and off J went, to bring the dog back to its home. When he got to that place, he opened up the door and out shot the dog, who acted like he was positively thrilled to be back among his people...... his 'people' were having a cook-out and the dog headed right there. J took that as a good sign, and back home he went because the weekend plans were slipping away right before his eyes.

Off they went for their weekend business.... and up went two signs in our hills here: "Lost Dog. Beagle. Please call....." Oh my. (Apparently, the guy in the vet's office thought that this particular beagle looked just the same as a different beagle altogether.) J & J were gone for the weekend..... I knew where the dog had been left...... should I call J?...... or just call the dog's owner? I didn't want to bother J&J.... they had more than enough going on over the weekend to take care of..... so I called the number on the sign.... turned out the dog's owners were the people building the new house up the road from our house and two properties away from J&J's house. What?!

Oh my. Those people have been driving up and down this road for months and months now.... they never stopped to say hello, never introduced themselves, most of the time they hardly waved hello as they went up and down the road. Had they been more friendly, and let us know who they were and what pets they had, we would have known instantly that the little brown and white beagle (named Herbie) belonged to them........ Herbie would never have been driven to the shelter, would never have been driven to the boatyard over by the lake... and would never have been let out of anyone's sight until his real owners could come and get him, for goodness sake.

What happened after we all found out where Herbie belonged was nothing less than a Christmas story. J & J got back from out of town and J immediately drove over to the boatyard near the lake to look around for that little dog. He had called up the owners, apologizing to them for not knowing the dog was theirs (as if any of us could have known in the first place?), apologizing for bringing the dog to where he was told it belonged, and offered to not only look for their dog but to also post a reward for Herbie.

This morning, back towards the lake went J, determined to knock on every door he could, hoping to find Herbie and get him back to his owners. And that's what he did.... and that's exactly what happened. He found that dog. Gave the people who had him a 'reward' for taking him in and then giving him up so J could get the dog back to the new neighbors.

Right about now, Herbie should be wagging his little beagle tail happily in his own home, looking up at his own Christmas tree, and dreaming of his adventure-filled weekend.

The lesson here, I believe, is to do things right, to make things right, whatever it takes. Sometimes you have to go above and beyond what you think is right, in order to make things come out right.

But where does doing right begin?

Personally, I think in this situation, it should have begun with the new neighbors being a little more friendly.... saying hello from time to time, stopping along the way to introduce themselves so we would know their children and their pets. Just about everyone who lives in our hills here knows who's who, which cats and dogs belong where, who's driving which vehicle.... we know our neighbors. And those neighbors that we know become our friends.

So simple, really. That one right thing to do could have saved a lot of heart-pounding for the dog's owners (we know their names now), and for our friend J, and for cute little Herbie (we know where he lives now).

We're still shaking our heads over this....... Herbie got lost, then found by J, returned to where we thought he belonged, then found again by someone else, then found by J a second time, then returned to his people. A little Christmas doggie-miracle. Jingle bells.

Sick. Sick. Sick.

There was no question in my mind that I would catch my husband's cold..... he got sick after the Christmas party.... I was fine. Until yesterday. Then the cold germs descended and decided to stay.

I hate being sick... such a waste of time. And you never get back wasted time. Once it's gone, it's just gone. I spent an unproductive day in the TV room, watching TV, going through half a box of tissues, and alternately having either Sweet Pea, Mickey, or Gatsby on my lap.

At one point, Gatsby curled up on my chest and put one of his huge paws on my throat. "Are you trying to kill me, Gatsby.... I'm having a hard time breathing as it is." Sweet Pea was gentler.... he curled up on the side of me and put his head on my leg and looked at me with that cute upside-down look that cats give you when they're either thinking "You're mine, mine, mine and I love you to bits...." or "I'm hungry, starving, weak from not eating since this morning and if you don't open up a can of Fancy Feast soon, I will shred this sofa to bits...."

And Mickey.... he walked along the back of the sofa and curled his front paws around my head and sat there with his face buried in my hair. I could hear him purring as my neck got stiff from not being able to move for twenty minutes.

As sunny and warm as yesterday was, today was cloudy and cool..... a real 'sick day.' I went outside twice today..... this morning to let the chickens into their little fenced-in yard, and this afternoon to lock the gate of their coop. I had let them out earlier this morning but then saw a hawk flying low over the yard so I ran back outside to get the hens inside the picket fence. I guess that means I was outside three times today. Each time, the fresh air seemed to clear up my runny nose. Had it been warmer, and sunnier, I would have sat out on the porch in the sun and let the sunlight soak into me.

Oh well... tomorrow is another day. Hopefully, this cold will be on the way out... out of my nose, out of my head, and out of this house.

Only nine more days till Christmas. Cough. Sneeze. Sniffle.

Plum Pudding

This was the day that we sliced into the plum pudding that my husband baked a couple of weeks ago. We invited J&J and J&G over for tea and the pudding.... complete with Victorian "Crackers" and vintage postcards made into place cards. Last year's pudding was made with plums from the trees growing in the yard next to our barn..... but because of this year's drought, not one plum grew on those trees, and one tree looks like the very life is gone from it.

Every year we say the same thing.... that this year's plum pudding is better than last year's. And even without the fresh plums from our property, this year's pudding was indeed better than last year's just because it was shared with good friends on a perfectly warm afternoon eleven days before Christmas. A new Christmas tradition for the six of us.... plum pudding and tea and "Crackers." We will have more of that same pudding when friends H&K can join us, and then again on Christmas Day when J&L and G come for dinner.

I thought of our friend Frankie when I was cutting into that plum pudding today...... she loved that part of Christmas at our old house-- the plum pudding. She would take that first bite and roll her eyes up towards the ceiling and say something like "This is what heaven must be like..." or "How can anyone not love plum pudding?" Frankie was born in England, and grew up in London during The Blitz (as she always called it). She had years when there wasn't enough money for plum pudding, and other years when they had the money but couldn't find the ingredients. She truly appreciated the effort and the 'history' of that pudding. I don't think a Christmas has gone by since Frankie passed away that we haven't spoken about her during the holidays.

And Fran. Always Fran.... in my mind so much since she passed away this past summer. There are days when I will say out loud "Oh, Fran...."-- the words will come out when I'm doing something in the kitchen or thinking of something totally different. I was setting the dining room table this morning, getting everything ready for tea this afternoon, and Fran just popped into my mind as if she were standing right there with me. And who knows.... maybe she was... watching me setting out cups and glasses, spoons and place cards. Fran loved to fuss over her table also..... and her collection of "glassware treasures" was outstanding.... mostly all of her beautiful glassware came from yard sales and estate sales, and little thrift shops. She loved Carnival Glass most of all..... and I can still picture her face years ago when she would tell me to stop by her house to see the latest piece that she had found. In my mind's eye, I can see her standing in front of that little china closet in her house, taking out pieces of Carnival Glass and holding them up to the light. Oh, Fran...

But today...... it was Plum Pudding Day.... and the day itself was warm and Spring-like...... the weather wizards say we'll have a cold Christmas Day-- 54 degrees, to be exact....... and that's 'cold' for Texas, but not cold for up north..... so I'm perfectly content with the temperatures for the coming week.

We're still talking about the Christmas party...... how nice it was to see 'old' friends from Clear Lake meeting our new friends from here..... one of our neighbors told us that after meeting our friends from our old neighborhood, she could understand why only the threat of hurricanes would make us move away from them.

The holidays, particularly Christmas, make you remember little things that may seem insignificant at the time but grow into major elements in your mind..... like V's collection of Santas parading all over every room of her home, and J's table-top tree filled with angels and icicles and blue ornaments, and all of the tiny white lights that were strung up and down our old street, with the one strand of multi-colored lights tossed out on the lawn by the neighbor at the corner--- we always thought she was such a Scrooge, but we started to invite her to our parties and she turned out to be one of the nicest neighbors on the block.... her multi-colored lights were just her own little tradition from Christmases past.

So you never know....... everyone has a story..... everyone has memories..... and at Christmas-time, all of those memories come out to play. And right this minute, all I have to do is walk downstairs to our living room and stand in front of the Nativity set that my parents set up every year when I was a kid..... I can stand there in front of that manger and see a four-year-old girl in pajamas, playing with the little celluloid sheep underneath our Christmas tree. And I can still hear my dad asking my mother "Which light bulb do you want in the manger... a blue one or a white one? Or maybe a yellow one?" My mother's answer was always the same..... Blue. A blue one.

Memories. They come out to play at Christmas-time.

Christmas Party in this big old house...

Last night was the first Christmas party we've had since we moved here. My one question: Why did we wait three years to host a Christmas party? It was a great evening.... a lot of friends from here, a few friends from Clear Lake.... everyone got together and it was a night of non-stop talking and laughing and enjoying the delicious pot-luck dinner that 'magically' appeared in our kitchen.

Such delicious foods... casseroles, home-baked breads, specialty cheeses, a huge ham, vegetable quiches, all kinds of salads....... and the desserts-- bread pudding, cherry cake, pumpkin cheesecake, blackberry cheesecake, Italian sweet cake, lemon pound cake, banana pudding.... and I know I'm leaving out a bunch of things. Somehow, at every pot-luck we've ever had, the array of foods is always outstanding and everyone enjoys tasting a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and then going back for 'just a bit more of that because it was just so good....'

Our friends C&L drove up from Clear Lake for the party and stayed in the Cottage last night, rather than driving back home after the party. At our parties in our other house, C&L were always the first to arrive and the last to leave, and we were laughing that they did the same thing now in this house. When I went into the Cottage this morning to collect the sheets and towels, there was the biggest poinsettia plant I've ever seen.... sitting there on the coffee table with a thank-you card for letting them stay over-night after such a big party.

Parts of last night were a blur..... when there's nearly 30 people in your living room and dining room, it's impossible to spend much time with everyone.... I sort of flitted in and out of all the rooms, making sure everyone had what they needed to enjoy their meal.... I think I sat down for maybe 30 minutes the entire night......... the high-heels I started off the party with lasted about an hour, then I switched to lower heels..... and then during the clean-up afterwards, out came the flats. It was 2:00 this morning by the time I got into bed and my head hit that pillow.... but I woke up to a clean kitchen, and the dining room, living room, and breakfast room were back together and ready for whatever comes next.

When I was talking to my Aunt Dolly last week, I told her about the party and she asked how many people were coming...... when I told her "about 30," she said "Oh, that's a small group...." (Which, in our big family, would indeed be a small group.) "And are you giving them a little something as they leave?" Of course... no one leaves our parties without a little gift, or 'favor.' We always did that in our family... no one left empty-handed.... they walked out of the door with a little something to remember the good time they had.

And the tradition continues here....... as it did in our old house. This big old house was meant to have lots of people in it.... meant to be a warm and inviting place for neighbors and friends to come and enjoy one another's company. And isn't that what Christmas is all about anyway?!

Stupid weather.......

We are in the midst of our first cold snap...... so snapping cold that the temperature went down to a snapping 28 degrees last night. (This is not what we moved to Texas for.....)

Keeping in mind that we had frozen pipes during last winter's hard-freeze, and also the hard-freeze of the winter before that....... now we have a winterizing plan. Heaters get turned on in the barn and in the cottage..... we drip-drip-drip water into the sinks..... electric blankets cover the water pump..... a heat lamp is warming up the filtering system coming into the house.... and no, we don't have an army of little elves to do all of that.

This is the time of the year when I look at this house and wonder if country living is all that it's cracked up to be...... (The answer is always no.)

However..... tonight isn't going to be as cold as last night..... and hopefully it will be getting warmer and back to normal temperatures by the end of the week.

Yesterday, during the cold-cold afternoon, the neighbor's cows got out of their pasture and were walking up our hill.... right in the road, going past our mailbox as if they were coming to visit. That's happened before, and I guess I'm getting used to seeing livestock in the road..... I called up to my husband to tell him to look out the window...... and that's all I was going to do. I wasn't going to track down the neighbor and tell him that his cows were loose. (Again.) But my husband did just that.... drove down there to let him know that his cows were headed away from home...... and the neighbor drove down his hill and then up our hill, and with his two dogs and his truck, he managed to get his cows to go back where they belonged. Funny thing about cows..... when you see them off in the middle of a pasture, they look big, but not that big. But when you see them out on the road, or in your yard, they are truly that big.

I have finally stopped re-arranging ornaments on the big Christmas tree.... and I've quit moving all the little trees around. Every blessed thing looks like it's in the right place, and everything looks as Christmas-y as it's going to get..... unless, of course, I happen to find just one more Santa. And you can never have enough Santas....... just ask my friend V.... she is Queen of the Santa figurines....... I couldn't even begin to count all of the Santas she has in her house.... and I'm sure she has lost count herself. And I didn't help matters much, by giving her a 12-piece Santa band for Christmas last year. They were miniatures, but a 12-piece band is still a lot of Santas to add to a Santa-filled house. V's Santa-cup runneth over...... and mine is getting right close to doing the same.

"The Best Christmas Pageant Ever!"

We went into town last night to the little theatre to see their holiday production of "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever!" Wonderful story... I read the book years ago.... about a grammar-school class getting together to put on a pageant for Christmas. Cute, cute story..... and the kids who were in last night's play were just wonderful. The perfect play for a small town because the story itself is very small-townish.

We went with J&G, and J&J....... going to dinner in town before the play, then back to the same cafe for dessert after the play........ then going to one of the main squares in town to look at the Christmas light displays. The town also had their annual Christmas parade before the play started.... J&J went to that while J&G and the two of us went for dinner. My husband and I had gone to the parade the first year we moved here..... it was sort of unorganized and they had no music playing (how can you have a parade without music?!) so we weren't that impressed.

This year's parade, however...... J&J said it was more organized.... more music...... more lighted floats. All of that means a better parade. So next year's plan..... go into town to see the parade, then go out for dinner.... and hopefully see whatever Christmas play they're showing at the town's theatre on another night instead of on the parade night.

By the end of that play last night, many people in the audience were dabbing at their eyes with tissues...... not that the play was sad, but I think the innocence of it all just touched everyone. I sat there watching those kids in the play and remembering all the Christmas plays we had to do when I was in Catholic grammar school. Every year there was a different play... and every year, every kid in all of the classes would moan and groan because we had to learn words to the songs, or (horror of horrors!) we would be chosen for one of the main roles. (In Catholic schools of the 1950s and 1960s, the nuns didn't ask for volunteers-- they just stood in front of the classes and picked kids for the parts.)

I got picked in the 5th grade...... I was the 'new girl' that year because we had moved there in August and the 5th grade was my first year in that school...... the nun in charge of the play went to each of the classrooms looking for students for the play. Her name was Sister Genevieve.... she picked me to be the girl who gets sick and can't go to the Christmas pageant, so she spends the entire time on stage in bed, in pajamas, and 'dreams' of what she's missing by being sick. I can still remember her coming into the 5th grade classroom... she stood there looking at all of us, and then she said "I'll take the new girl." I had no choice. Out the door I went with Sister Genevieve and she gave me the typed pages with my lines on it. She told me to memorize the pages, and be at the first rehearsal promptly after school the next day. The last thing I wanted to do was be in bed in my pajamas on a stage in front of all the kids in school and their parents. Plus, for weeks after that, the kids in my class were calling me The New Girl instead of my name.

My mother bought me new pajamas with a Christmas design on them... plus new slippers and a new bathrobe. (She bought those things every Christmas for my sister and I, but she gave them to me early, a few days before the play.) Even the thought of getting Christmas gifts before Christmas morning didn't get me excited about being in that play. But I did it..... I didn't have a choice... I memorized the lines.... my mother was in the audience the first night.... my father and my Aunt Dolly were in the audience the second night..... friends and neighbors were there.... and parents of the kids in my class. And there I was.... up on that stage in white pajamas with little red reindeer prancing all over them. The rest of 5th grade was all down-hill after that.

But last night.... the play was nostalgic and fun and comforting and we all enjoyed it...... we laughed over hot chocolate and peach cobbler.... we walked on quiet streets in our tiny 'downtown' squares and looked up at the thousands of white lights that out-lined all of the shops and the courthouse and the trees. Simple, beautiful, tiny white lights...... in a simply, beautiful, tiny little town....... J was taking pictures of the lighted trees..... we didn't want the night to end.

Looking up at the old-fashioned courthouse and the town square........ it made me forget about the wildlife encounters with snakes and raccoons, and the creepy crawly scorpions and steroid-laced spiders, and the crying cows and shotguns exploding in the woods when hunting season begins.

The Christmas truth is that you can say what you want about all the conveniences of city-life, but there's not much that can top living in a one-hundred-year-old house in a nearly-200-year-old town that thrives on its 1950's sense of propriety in the Texas Hill Country.

How many more days....

..... till Christmas? Twenty-four.

The stores are just starting to get a little crowded here...... I don't know how busy it was in town on the day after Thanksgiving with the crazy Black Friday shopping, but all the local stores have mailed out coupons and today when I went looking for shoes, it seemed as if every woman in the store was holding sale-coupons for their purchases. I was also.... I used them for shoes that were already 50% off, then with my coupon, the shoes were an additional 20% off. My kind of shopping.

It's hard to find shoes in this town...... hard to find pretty shoes, that is. I can buy flats by the dozen, all sorts of plain-looking industrial-strength shoes that seem to be all the rage here. The only store in this town that carries pretty shoes is Palais Royal. But you have to get there as soon as they stock the shelves..... a day or two later and the range of sizes is very limited.

I've had a bronze pair of heels that I've worn with my dress jeans for about three years now. They should have been tossed out at least six months ago, but I couldn't find anything similar for my good jeans. So I just kept them shined up and they were fine. Plenty of other shoes in my closet, but not a good walking pair of heels for my dress jeans. I wanted a heel, not a flat.... and there were no metallic colors to be seen here. Hasn't anyone in this town heard of bronze? Not gold or silver so it looks like you're wearing slippers, but honest-to-goodness bronze, which looks great with a pair of dark dress jeans. (Isn't anyone else here watching "What Not To Wear!")

I guess the closest place to here that has real shoe-stores is College Station.... and I will have to look up there the next time we go. Until then... I did find a pair of brown heels with a crocodile pattern in the leather...... the heel was just fine, they're super-comfortable... and I would have bought two identical pairs if there had been another pair in my size.

I have a greeting card from years and years ago that I've kept...... on the front of it, there are dozens of pretty shoes... on the inside of the card it says "All I want out of life are comfortable shoes that are pretty... and I'd be perfectly content." For today, I am perfectly content..... and I have tossed out those old bronze heels.


I've been re-reading a lot of Christmas books since the beginning of November.... I try to re-read as many of my Christmas books as I can between the first of November and the last day of December. At the thrift shop yesterday, I found a 1954 copy of "The Little Fir Tree." I had that book when I was a kid.... and this copy is in pristine condition, but without the dust-jacket. The vintage artwork on the book's pages is very old-fashioned and sweet, and I read the book from cover to cover last night (didn't take long-- it's a children's book) and then I paged through it twice more just to look at the illustrations. I can't remember how many times I read and re-read that book when I was a kid..... such a simple little story, all about a young boy's Christmas and a lonely little tree out in the forest.

Jingle bells....... just 24 more days till Christmas.