I love experiencing every age. I rejoice in each passing year.

December 12, 2007

I love experiencing every age. I rejoice in each passing year.

I recently posted about Sinterklaas and I got to thinking about family traditions around the holidays. I had heard from my old boss that she was putting the shoes by the door for her grandkids and she would fill them with candy but I didn't know it was Sinterklaas. Now i know.

So we have 2 of our traditions for Christmas taken care of. The first is that I've ordered our tamales! I'm not sure when this started, I think it was when I worked at a place in the 80's and I did a lot of company functions and ordering of food and one of the girls had a sister who made tamales and we ordered them for work but I also ordered them for our Christmas Eve. And then the tradition became that on Christmas morning after opening our presents, we would have breakfast and it included the left over tamales. And so now, it's not Christmas morning unless we have tamales.

Last year I forgot...someone, I think it was my customer actually, asked if we had tamales for Christmas and I said....oh crap! I forgot to order them. It was like Christmas Eve eve and here is Mitchypoo running around all of East Los Angeles looking for tamales. It was no small feat. Someone told me about this place they use to go to all the time, they had great tamales, so I went there to find it was gone, it was a hair salon now....went to another place, they didn't have any more available. I kid you not, I went to about 4 places before I found somewhere, not our favorite place that had them, and so I took what I could get.

So this year, that same customer came in to make a payment last week, and she asked again, did you get tamales? Um.....no....but it's almost 3 weeks before and I had time, so I went that night after picking up Gary. I told him that we were on a tamale quest and we drove to our favorite place and I was able to order with no problem! So we have a half dozen beef with red chili and a half dozen pork with green chili and a half dozen green chili and cheese! I pick them up on the 22nd because the 23rd and 24th were booked. We in LA take our tamales seriously now, don't we!

So we'll take them and put them in a steamer pot, steam them for about 20-30 minutes and then enjoy! We'll have eggs, maybe a frittata or an egg bake, but the highlight for us is the tamales.

Our 2nd tradition is to have champagne with peaches! Mamacita already got the champagne, we just have to remember to chill it and we always have a can of sliced peaches. We get up Christmas morning, turn on the Christmas Tunes on Sirius channel on TV, turn on the lights, make a really nice pot of coffee (meaning freshly ground beans), open the bubbly, put in the peach slices........and THEN....we can open our gifts! When I was married, I carried on those traditions too and the ex loved it and it made me feel nostalgic and also a little home sick. And I usually got looped because he didn't really like champagne and I'd end up drinking the bottle because it was just us 2. So then the tradition included a serious nap after opening presents! :)

How do you like our pink tree?

Oh, my, look at the pattern I ordered! Is it gorgeous or what!?

I love this so much! I have to make it and it'll only cost about $200 for all the yarn and shipping if I buy this exact yarn which I think I want to do. That would be all the yarn for the sweater, tam and scarf! I saw this on a blog that for the life of me I cannot find and desperately want to because she made it and it is GORGEOUS. If I find it I'll post a link for you to take a look.

When I searched for a pic this came up, I think it was based on this painting. It looks like the drapery detail was incorporated into the trim design. I love this pic too. Hmmm, think I have some research to do. So next year is going to involve some fair isle knitting for me!