Thanksgiving night....

What a nice, nice day.... with a delicious dinner. There were 8 of us for dinner late this afternoon... M and his daughter M, friends J and J,  G and her friend J, and my husband and myself. The weather was glorious... a little cool this morning but warm and sunny this afternoon.

The turkey breast was beyond perfect, following the instructions on the food network to rotate the bird half-way through the cooking time. (It cooked very evenly and browned nicely because each side of the bone-in breast got a chance to be top-side in the roasting pan.)  Into the breast cavity, I put half an apple, a whole cinnamon stick, and a large sprig of rosemary. All those flavors cooked into the turkey.... and when the turkey came out of the oven, I put the apple and cinnamon stick into the pot of gravy and let those flavors simmer into the gravy as it heated up. Delicious gravy (for a change).

My husband made oyster dressing and mashed potatoes, I made sweet potatoes and baked apples, J and J brought asparagus and fresh-baked bread and home-made cranberry sauce, and J brought a huge bowl of Caesar salad.  For dessert, I baked a pumpkin pie with fresh whipped cream, and J and J came with a pecan pie.

We all just had a nice relaxing dinner, lots of conversations and laughs, and everyone seemed very much at home and comfortable, which is how it should be.  I had made little place card packages of chocolates covered in Thanksgiving-ish wrapping paper, tied up with raffia, with each name on a little card which sat on top of the package. They came out really cute, and everyone is always surprised to find that the place card is more than just a place card.

My husband said the entire afternoon seemed effortless, and that's just how it appeared, which is a good thing. Last thing guests need to see is someone running from one end of a kitchen to the other with a frazzled to-do list that isn't quite done by the time everyone takes their seats.

That sense of effortless-ness was achieved by three days of cooking and baking. By this morning, all that had to be done was to put the turkey into the oven and then pop all the pans of side-dishes into the oven while the turkey was resting and then being sliced. I had set the table yesterday, took my time with Thanksgiving decorations and it looked just beautiful... and when everyone sits down to a pretty table, I think it really does set the mood for the dinner.

Another Thanksgiving in this big old wonderful house. Now it's time to get ready for our Christmas party, and the Waldorf Wednesday Ornament Exchange... and then Christmas Eve and Christmas. And, in case you're wondering... just 29 more days till Christmas Day.

Day before Thanksgiving....

... and we've been cooking, cooking, and cooking.

The oyster dressing is made, as are the mashed potatoes... all ready in pans to go into the oven for re-heating tomorrow. My husband makes both of those dishes every year. I've made the sweet potatoes (not a marshmallow in sight) and the pumpkin pie.... friends are bringing a pecan pie, so I didn't bake an apple pie.  I also just finished whipping fresh cream for the pies.... not a job you want to do when you're wearing fancy clothes for a holiday meal, so that's done.

The dining room table is all set and looking very pretty. There will be 8 of us around the table, so I've made pretty little place cards--- wrapped up chocolates with a name on each little package...  all in Thanksgiving colors. Very cute.... I love making place cards with a little surprise inside of them.

The weather has been great..... a bit cool at night and during the early morning, but by lunch time, the sun has warmed everything up and it feels like Spring. And that's about the kind of 'winter' weather that I would be perfectly happy with every year.

Now I need to figure out how many hours to cook the turkey tomorrow..... I bought a turkey breast this year which weighs nearly 9 pounds. My turkey-breast-cooking guide goes up to just 7 pounds.... so I'll check the Food Network web-site for the proper cooking time.  That's the only part of Thanksgiving that I really don't enjoy--- cooking a turkey, or any part thereof.

It would have been so much nicer if the Pilgrims had feasted on salmon or lobster way back when.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Getting ready for turkey day.

I guess the count-down now begins... I've got the turkey defrosting in the fridge. Not exactly an entire turkey, with legs and wings and all of that, but the largest and most plump turkey breast that I could find.  I don't exactly enjoy cooking the whole bird, nor do I like having all of the dark meat that no one ever seems to eat. So this year, for the six of us at our dining room table, I will be asking our friends "Would you like white meat, or white meat?"

My husband will be making his oyster dressing (or 'stuffing,' as it's called up north).  That's always my favorite part of Thanksgiving... the dressing and the sweet potatoes. And pumpkin pie (which I will bake on Wednesday).  Can't have Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie. It's in the rule book somewhere.

The weather is gorgeous today... nearly 80 degrees and sunny, which is my favorite kind of Texas-winter day. So much better than the freezing weather of last week, which has found someplace else to go. We checked the weather station and it's supposed to be warm and very nice for the next ten days, so we'll have a warm Thanksgiving. I guess I won't be bothering with hot apple cider to go along with Thanksgiving dinner. Everyone here will most likely want iced tea (the official beverage throughout this state).

According to my calendar, there's just 33 more days till Christmas. Jingle bells... it's coming faster and faster every year, whether y'all are ready or not.

La Giaconda

That's what my grandmother used to call her third daughter--- La Giaconda.... but over the years, my generation of cousins all called her Jaye.

Aunt Jaye was the glamorous one in the family. Not that my dad's other sisters weren't pretty as well, but Giaconda had an old-Hollywood style that no one else in the family could duplicate. In my aunt's younger years, she looked like Elizabeth Taylor and Ava Gardner all rolled up into one Italian NYC-girl.  Jaye's sense of style was a bit over-the-top for the Borough of Queens, but she would have fit right in on any 'red carpet' in Hollywood.

One of Aunt Jaye's favorite things to do with all the kids back in the 1950s and 1960s was to pinch our cheeks whenever she saw us. Those manicured nails would come reaching out for the right or left side of our faces and only the very brave would move away before she could latch onto our faces and say "Bella, bella.... you look like your father!"  And then would come the kiss... with Aunt Jaye's signature magenta-colored lipstick, which she wore for decades and decades.  After she kissed our cheek, we'd have her lips imprinted on our faces till my grandmother washed it off for us.  Aunt Jaye would tell us not to wash the lipstick off--- "It's good luck!" she would say.

My dad called Aunt Jaye's house "The Crystal Palace" because no matter where you looked, you would see your reflection in either the mirrors hanging on the walls or in the prisms hanging from lamps and chandeliers.  And no one, absolutely no one, was allowed to walk past Jaye's kitchen without first taking off their shoes.  Come to think of it, I don't even remember anyone using the front door of Aunt Jaye's house, which opened up into the carpeted living room. If you wanted to go into Jaye's house, then it was through the back door. No exceptions.

For the past two years, Aunt Jaye had been hospitalized, then signed into a nursing facility when the hospital could do nothing more for her. A sudden stroke had destroyed some of her memory and mostly all of her joy for life. There were days when she would recognize family members who came to visit, and days when she needed to be told who was standing in front of her. For someone who loved, loved, loved her family, it was a bittersweet reminder of the fragility of the human mind.

Aunt Jaye's daughter is my cousin R, born four months after me in 1952.  We grew up as sisters, and were as close as sisters for decades, then were separated for a while by life's changing tides, then reunited by still other changes, and we've been close-close ever since. That's the beauty of family... even when you go your separate ways for a time, there's always forgiveness and acceptance waiting at the end of the tunnel.

Late last  night, my phone rang and I could see by the 'caller ID' that it was my cousin R.  I knew the phone call wouldn't be a "Hi! It's me!" sort of conversation.

R was calling to tell me that her mother had just then passed away, quietly in her sleep. She was getting ready to go to the nursing home to sign papers and collect her mother's belongings. I told her I would get in touch with the rest of the family to let them know what happened.  And I did just that, sending out eMails to all the cousins.... apologizing for the impersonal electronic notes, but I didn't want to be calling their homes after midnight.  This morning, I called our cousins, telling them of the gentle way our 93-yr-old Aunt Jaye left this world.  We all agreed that our aunt was now with our grandparents and parents.... having a great big Italian dinner. "There must be a big Italian kitchen somewhere up there," said one of my cousins. Indeed.

I wore a strand of pearls today, for my Aunt Jaye. Her love of jewelry is legendary in our family, and she was always happy when one of her nieces followed in her bejeweled footsteps. Aunt Jaye loved all sorts of jewelry, but she truly treasured her pearls. So I wore my best pearls today, with a simple black top and my good jeans. Aunt Jaye wouldn't have approved of the casualness of my outfit, but she would have truly appreciated my choice of pearls.

There is just one of my grandmother's children left now... 102-yr-old Aunt Dolly, who lives in Florida with her nephew, my cousin S.  This morning, I asked the family not to call S's house until he had a chance to quietly tell Aunt Dolly about Jaye's passing. After much thought, however, S decided not to say anything about Jaye to Aunt Dolly just now.  Two of Aunt Dolly's other nieces will be going to Florida the week after Thanksgiving.... and that's when they will all tell Dolly what happened with Jaye.  Because of the winter weather in the northeast, and Aunt Dolly's age, there is no way that she could travel up to NY for a funeral this week.

My dad's parents had 12 children, three of whom died as infants, and nine living to adulthood. Before my grandmother died (a year after my grandfather passed away) Grandma's last words to Aunt Dolly were "Take care of your brothers and sisters after I go to Papa."

For all of her life, Aunt Dolly has taken care not only of her brothers and sisters, but all of her nieces and nephews as well. At 102 years old, we have all kept her very busy. And she has loved us all very much, without reserve, without judgment, without exception.

The family is hoping that with the passing of La Giaconda, Aunt Dolly won't start to believe that her work here is all done now.

As for my Aunt Jaye.... she was unique, she was brilliantly beautiful, and thoughtfully, respectfully generous. In the necklace of this family, she was indeed the most lustrous pearl on the strand, and I'm so grateful that she had a peacefully quiet ending to her glamorous life.

Wrapping, boxing, packing....

Except for just a few gifts for my cousin's little girl in Chicago, I have finished packing up all the Christmas presents that have to be mailed. All those brown-paper-wrapped boxes are piled up in my sitting room now, waiting to be mailed after Thanksgiving.

And just whose idea was it anyway to buy such fragile items that required odd-shaped boxes?  Note to myself:  Buy books for Christmas gifts, or anything that can fit into a box no larger than the size of a shoe-box.

Most of the gifts I send, especially to my cousins' kids, are books. I worked in a library for nearly 20 years, and I've always loved books, so those are always the first things I look at when it's time for Christmas. Books are easy to wrap and pack, and when you send them via Media Mail, the post office doesn't charge the proverbial arm and leg. (No disrespect to the post office... they've never lost one of the packages I've mailed since we moved here to Texas in 1993.)

I have a friend in England whose Christmas gifts are a challenge.... I want to send her nice things that won't get damaged along the way, in a heavy box that won't get banged up. Finding the gifts are easy... finding the correct size box is the hard part. Maybe I should find a good box first, and then fill it up with whatever fits.

My best friend in Maryland... this year, I found her an over-sized gift that I know she will use and love... finding the box for that was nearly impossible, but it's wrapped up now and ready to go. The smaller gifts for her husband and her daughter were a piece of cake, although one of those is fragile and the box is stuffed with bits of packing foam to keep the edges from getting dented along the way.

For anyone out there who's thinking that Christmas is still so far away..... wake up and smell the hot cocoa!  Christmas is just 40 days from today. Four-oh. Do you know how quickly these 40 days will disappear?  I never did understand how some people don't start preparing for Christmas until all the Thanksgiving left-overs are gone.  If a person starts shopping for gifts and decorating the house on December 1st, that leaves just 24 days till Christmas Eve.

I couldn't do all that I do in 24 days.... there would be no time for baking, no time to decorate every room in this house, hardly any time to wrap and box-up all the gifts for my family and their children, and certainly no time to enjoy it all, and that's the most important part.... the enjoyment.

Jingle bells, people.  40 more days till Christmas..... get going!

Totally stupid weather....

I hate this time of the year when the weather is just so unpredictable.  We woke up the other morning to 76 degrees, which quickly dropped to 58 during that afternoon.  By the morning of the next day, the temperature was 49 degrees, and last night the thermometer was hovering around 38 degrees. Must be some cosmic joke, to see if the southern part of the country is paying attention to the Arctic Blast that's blowing down from Canada.

And yes, we're paying attention.  Water faucets are dripping, heaters are running near plumbing connections.... and just now as I type this, I'm wondering if my husband put those foam covers around the outdoor water faucets where the garden hoses are connected. Give me a blessed break.

What on earth happened to those years when we first moved down here and the coldest temperatures we saw between the months of November and February were in the 50s?!?

I really like Canada.... we've been there and everything we saw was very picturesque and quaint and beautiful. As for their weather, I wish it would stay up there with the ice fields where it belongs.

Two o'clock in the morning....

There used to be an old song.... "It's three o'clock in the morning...." -- I think that was a line in the song, not the title.  My grandmother used to sing that when she got up earlier than her usual wake-up time of 5:30.  She was very much a morning person, and got a lot done around the house before mostly everyone else got up for breakfast. (This was my grandmother on my mother's side.) But that's neither here nor there... I just thought of it as I started to type.

I am awake because I just made my husband some Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup.  He's had a bad cold for the past couple of days, and that's what makes him feel less congested.... a red and white can of Campbell's "Chickey Snoodle Soup" (as one of the "Mutts" cartoon cats would say.  I think of weird things in the middle of the night.)  I am also awake because of my husband's coughing... and coughing... and coughing.  I'm hoping that the next one to start coughing is not me.

I have been decorating the house for Christmas all week.... only thing left to do now is the vintage silver tree that goes in the living room.  As always, there is a Christmas explosion in this house. No matter where you look, there are little trees... and Santas... and angels.  All of which are preliminary to the live tree we will put up in the dining room right after Thanksgiving.  Christmas trees are in all the rooms now. I usually leave the silver tree for last... it takes the longest because I put vintage glass ornaments on every one of its branches and you have to get them all just-so in order to keep the tree balanced.  Back in the day (the 1950s) no one put ornaments on those silver trees... they would use a colored light-wheel to reflect primary colors onto the branches. Not exactly my style... hate the color-wheel, but love the silver tree. The ornaments make all the difference, as long as they're vintage and fit the era of the tree.

Tomorrow (actually, later on today), M will be here to start moving some of his stuff into the barn. By the end of this month, he'll be 'officially' moved in. Until then, he'll be coming here on Sundays to help my husband with things around the property, and get to know what his responsibilities will be.  I don't know if my husband will be cough-less enough to actually do any work outside today... depends on how much chicken noodle soup he eats between now and the time M gets here.

The barn apartment is all set now.... clean and sparkling, just-washed sheets, kitchen cabinets equipped with a few pots and pans, dishes and glasses and utensils.... ready for our new resident handyman to make his own. I told M last week that if there are too many decorative things up there not to his liking, he can just put them in a box and I'll either sell them in my antique shop space or donate them to the thrift store. The decor of the barn is all red/white/blue and Texas... no frills or ruffles up there... just Texas/Americana.

I haven't heard much coughing in the past few minutes. Maybe the chicken noodle soup worked and we can get back to sleep.

Out comes Christmas...

... a little bit at a time. And stop laughing.... Christmas will be here in a heart-beat, now that Halloween has come and gone.

I spent the day after our Halloween party taking down all the decorations... black cats and witches and pumpkins are now all packed away in the storage closet. So much quicker to un-decorate because I'm not walking around with each item and thinking "Now where should I put this...."   When the decorations come down, there's only one place to put them--- into the boxes.

This morning, I started with the Christmas decorations.... the breakfast room and the kitchen are nearly done.... then comes the foyer.... and then the big guns come out--- the living room and dining room.  The rooms on the second floor are all done.... those are the easy ones--- just a little tree in each of the rooms with a few angels and reindeer here and there.  The table-top tree in my dressing room stays out all year long because it's filled with shoe ornaments, and flowers and Victorian ornaments. Mainly, it stays right where it is because it won't fit into the storage closet unless I take off all the ornaments and fold up the tree. Not going to happen... easier to leave it where it is, plus it's a little bit of Christmas all year long.

Our very special Miss C called last night.... as happy as she could be.... her horse Tallahatchie has taken to his new saddle without fuss and C plans to keep putting the saddle on him every day now, with hopes of soon being able to ride him.  When she called, her voice was so bubbly and joyful that I thought she was going to tell me that she met someone...... but I know her news last night was much better than that.  She's been working every day with her horse, training him, grooming and loving him, and they have such a tight bond..... it will soon be their one-year anniversary.  "Tallahatchie's Adoption Day" is November 8th, and that's the day that C calls his birthday.

After the horse's progress report, I told C our news.... that we have arranged for a friend of ours to live in the apartment over the barn...... he will do work for us here, in lieu of rent charges. I had to tell C that I took all of her personal things out of the barn rooms and put them into the guest cottage. When she comes up here for visits, she'll be sleeping in the cottage from now on.  She was happy that we found someone for the barn.... my husband and I had been discussing this for over a year, waiting till we found just the right person, and we think we have.

I told C about the Halloween party.... and she was sorry to have missed it. Not so easy now, with her 'big girl job,' as she calls it. The older she gets, the more she has come to realize just how precious time is..... and the less personal time you have, the more you cherish it.  C has been very busy at work these past few months, plus all the training and care of Tallahatchie. On Halloween night, she was sound asleep, too tired even to go out with friends close by, much less able to make the two-hour-plus drive all the way up here for the party.

We miss her at our parties.... and on the holidays... and every day. C was in and out of our house all the time when we lived in Clear Lake, but it was easy back then--- we all lived in the same neighborhood.  Now my husband and I are in the Hill Country, and C lives close to Galveston.  Life surely has changed a lot for my little second-grade reading student, who is now making "big bucks" at her "big girl job."

Time marches on, whether you're paying attention or not. Better to always pay attention.

Halloween night...

Actually, it's 1:30 in the morning as I type, so it's really "Halloween plus one...."

Our Halloween party tonight was lots of fun.... the more parties we have out here, the more fun they are. Everyone who walked into our door tonight was more than ready for a good party, and having a house filled with Halloween decorations only added to the party atmosphere.

Mostly everyone came in costumes.... so creative.... we had the most beautiful witch I've ever seen (AC won First Prize for that).... and JS's little dog Bella won a ribbon for "Cutest Costume" -- she was dressed up in a mini-mini Wonder Woman outfit. Too adorable for words, that little Chihuahua.

We had an Army soldier (Second Place Prize), the "Gunsmoke" guy and Miss Kitty (from the old TV show), a poodle-skirt 1950s girl, the cutest raffia-stuffed scarecrow ever, my husband was one of the Duck Dynasty guys, I dressed up like one of the women of "Downton Abbey," and then.... four of the ladies and one of the husbands came in with zombie-like make-up and all wearing tee-shirts that said "Wait for it...." --- we had no idea what we were all waiting for, but the makeup and crazy outfits kept us guessing.  After dessert, music started to play that old song "The Monster Mash" and one of the ladies got up dancing to the music and not saying a word...... then the next tee-shirt-wearing woman got up and joined the first one... then the third... and then the fourth.... and the dance that started in the dining room ended up in the living room and front hallway, with the "Wait for it"-husband wearing a Dracula cape and taking the male singer's part in that song.

Without a doubt, they had to have practiced all of this during the week... and their show brought the house down....... it was an organized "flash dance" that had us all just mesmerized..... too funny for words, all of their dancing and the make-up and the howling and singing along with "The Monster Mash" music.

We always have a Potluck Dinner for our parties, and the array of foods has always been over-the-top...... casseroles and hot sandwiches, fried chicken, hot vegetables, potato salads, always deviled eggs (sometimes two or three different recipes)... and the dessert table tonight was over-flowing with better-than-a-bakery cakes and pies, brownies, cookies, chocolate-dipped strawberries... we could have fed at least ten more people with everything that was on the kitchen counters and the tables in the breakfast room.

Great, great party...... and tomorrow... I will start taking down the Halloween decorations.... and next week the Christmas decorations will come out of the closet... that always takes over a week to finish because every room is decorated with trees and Santas and angels and reindeer... it becomes a Christmas explosion.

What fun........ honestly, this house was made for company, made for parties, made to be shared with friends.   And how lucky am I to live here....