This past week has been like a whirlwind, like for many people out in the big wide world verdad? As I’ve finished those last minute errands in this Covid Era, I know, tagging it like this sounds muy exagerado, but it has been an extreme time. I sat in some parking lot traffic yesterday and it reminded me of the congestion and busyness of Christmases past, call me loca, but I was grateful for the feeling of “back to normal” as I impatiently waited for traffic to move along. The lines were just long, not very long and masked folks were all around, as I waited in line I thanked God for Christmas time.
We are wrapping up our season with some fun jolly times. Last week on the 20th we commemorated our return to our annual tamalada by remembering my apa. For over 20 years my cunada and I have built a true friendship, pushing aside the lies and insecurities of “inlaw phobias” and God has given us a blessed friendship. We have established a very informal but set in stone tradition of working hard at Christmas making tamales, I was so glad for our day together with our girls. Tamales de puerco, de pollo, de res and my amas sweet tamales. Tamaladas are lots of work, hijole, I’ve always denied myself the opportunities to learn the secret of the masa but I had no choice this year, my hands went into the masa. Tamaladas are lots of talk, hot on the topic list was the fact that although covid separated us, it actually brought Sandra a new helper, mi hermano! Hector says it was a one time deal though. In the end when it’s all said and done we reap pots of tamales. Life circumstances, like “apa watch” hindered our tamale tradition and covid completely blocked it in 2020 but this year tamales prevailed and the time was extra special.
Last night we squeezed in our Scrooge Dinner Party with our dear friends, the Alsobrooks. Heavy sigh, once upon a time they were the ‘Octopuses’, but then Thomas learned how to say their name correctly. Our dinner party consists of three parts: dinner, a white elephant gift exchange and then regular gift exchange. This year was a tight squeeze, since aside from covid, regular nasty little viruses were jumping around making people sick and keeping them laid up in bed. Our family party was smaller since some were sick, but we prevailed and the show must go on, we chose to enjoy and appreciate our yearly tradition. Oh what a great time we had.
Having girl friends that I can trust has been so comforting through the years, pero imaginate when our families connect and there is true friendship across the board of parents and children, hermoso! Last night we decided to make breakfast for dinner, so that meant Ben’s popular sourdough pancakes. We impatiently waited for everyone to arrive so we could entrarle a la comida, digging into the food as if we were ravenous. Hay si, maybe not ravenous but hungry, borderline, ‘hangry’ the shopping and wrapping had us madd.
How do I describe our scrooge exchange? The rule is to spend as little as possible, Bah HumBug! Of course we all struggle to figure out what we could bring that’s clever and stealable. One person brought brake pads…used with a hidden gift card and another brought a used gift card😎 with a balance of $7.40 left on it. Ben chose a gift that had a puppy in it, hijole! Thankfully his barking and whining had an off button. Thomas stole a sausage that also had a water hose nozzle, ya se, and it got crazier, but it was lots of fun. We ended our night with cleanup but only after we had a wrapping paper wad fight, where in the world did all grown ups go?
Here I am today, Christmas Eve with wrapping left to do. Tonight we’ll go to Christmas Eve dinner with more friends and come home to get the last three items on our Christmas countdown: Ben will prepare the sourdough mix and bring in the wood for the fireplace tomorrow morning and we’ll all wait til just before midnight, to help Santa Clos bring all the gifts. Now that the kids are all grown up, we actually have to wait for them to get to our stockings and gifts…Asi es, as we get older we sleep less.
Merry Christmas to all, may you be blessed on Christmas day and on. God bless you Everyone!
Mexican-American Girl 