A Texas Christmas - Day 7 & 8
Dec. 24th & 25th

Christmas Eve!

Friday
Melanie came for a a very quick visit over coffee, but quick or not, I'll take it! I hate that my besties and I are so dang far apart. We opened up our gifts left with my mom from Chandra who spends every other Christmas in Colorado with family so we miss her terribly :( But we did receive the cutest family photo! Black and white, casual family photo taken by a professional photographer, it turned out great! Trey arrived just after Mel left and it was pouring down Texas rain style as we headed out for our day of "errands" ugh. Trey and I still needed to pick up a gift for Thomas since Dick's Sporting Goods was so helpful the other day. Academy to the rescue we found a Spurs shirt for Thomas! We swung by Cover 3 to have a yummy little lunch and to miss some of the rain, then went to visit Thomas in the hospital. God he didn't look good :( (as of writing this Mom says he's gotten a lot better, yay!) We organized his xmas cards and chatted a little considering he can barely talk :( After that we went to Cavender’s for Trey’s xmas shopping. After being convinced khaki goes with black, he got a cool jacket and we helped him decide on some jeans and then it was off to Nana's! It was a bit of a sad visit for me as her eyesight and hearing are just about gone and she seems to be getting more nice to the point of verbalizing her appreciation for our mom out loud and in front of us! (long history there) I'm afraid that means she is possibly feeling like getting her "affairs" in order. She also gave me and Trey cool gifts, inheritance items...
After Nana's we were finally on our way home to relax for Christmas Eve. Mr. Born came over as usual and brought some of his newest carvings to show me. I need to figure out when I'm going to play with mine! We had Mom's amazing tortilla soup for dinner, my chocolate glazed rum cake was a success and we stayed up chatting. I lovely evening :)

Saturday
Woke up and pulled a classic Shelby and broke one of mom's vases :( Not entirely my fault... it was in a bad place on a flimsy table! Sorry Mom. Although that was me getting Trey's opinion on my jacket mom bought me and I decided it was fantastic and I was keeping it! (earlier I had tried on Mom's new coat and liked it better which is where my indecision began). I made a frittata and english muffins with jam for breakfast and then Trey, Mom and I sat down to open presents. Mom got lots of little goodies and I got a very cool present from Nana: A purse made by my grandpa. He killed the deer, skinned the hide for the leather, designed the purse himself and did some leather work for a simple design, then sent it to be made into the purse. Amazing! I am very honored to have this and happy to have such a fun memory of my grandpa. Mom got me a cookbook and desk calendars I had picked out on etsy.com, a cute 40's looking winter hat, a scare and my new coat of course. Trey had previously gotten a wallet made by grandpa, but Nana wanted him to have this itty bitty fragile bible of hers. Mom said she didn't mean for it to be a message to Trey about religion, it was more that it was something special to her from her past and she wanted to pass it down to him. Very sweet. Trey and I had taken each other to the Spurs game so that was our gift.
Like many families, Christmas afternoon is meant for the movies!! One of my favorite things :) We all headed out to the Alamo Drafthouse to see True Grit, however once we got there they only had 2 tickets left! We were disappointed and a little unenthusiastically decided to see The Fighter instead - it was really good! Mom and I shared a bottle of champagne while Trey went with the beers and we also got chips and queso, fried pickles and a big bowl of popcorn with real melted butter! Oh... and I also had to have Amy's vanilla with espresso - mmm...
After the movie we hugged Trey goodbye as he had to get home, unpack and work the next day. Mom and I swung by Honda to get her car shopping a start. (and a few days later I learn she bought an Accord, ha!) Back home mom helped me strategize my packing, ugh. I still don't know how she can pack so neatly!! Even though I was checking my suitcase, my carry on was still a heavy pain, happens everytime I don't know why I am surprised by this or why I don't plan better. Then we sat down to bruscetta and a great bottle of wine: From Camellia Cellars “Diamo Grazie” 1999. yummy, while watching HGTV design shows. I love watching HGTV with other people - can't stand it by myself!