O Christmas Tree

One of my very favorite things to do at Christmas time is to decorate the Christmas tree. I like putting up all the other Christmas decorations around the house too, but really I love looking through all the ornaments we’ve collected over the years. Every year my mom gives my brother and me each an ornament, I usually give someone in the family an ornament, and of course other friends and family etc give ornaments as well, so this makes for one giant tree filled with memories and meaning. I decided to take pictures of some of my favorite Christmas ornaments. :-)

 

I think my mom gave this Starbucks coffee cup to me our first year in Kaufman. I liked Starbucks at that time, but I had no idea how many hours I would spend in coffee shops over the next four years.

 

My dad teases my mom every Christmas because of her large quantity of snowman decorations. I should count the number of snowmen we have in our house…there are a lot. Last winter when I was studying abroad I found this snowman with shamrocks on it in a shop in Dublin. Funny how you can make anything Irish by painting a shamrock on it.

When I was four my grandma took my brother and me to Hallmark to pick out ornaments while we were on furlough in Texas. I picked out a crocodile wearing a scarf. I still think its one of the coolest ornaments on the tree. It’s a scarf wearing crocodile, AND when you twist his tail his mouth opens!

 

  

 

My parents love New Mexico, we’ve been there as a family a couple times. I think my mom bought this ornament in Taos the summer before my senior year of high school. If you have never been to New Mexico, you should go on a road trip, last New Years me and my friends drove all the way to New Mexico…basically just to play in the snow….best road trip ever!

 

We have a few very random ornaments, like this little puppy wearing a mask with antlers. His present says “from your secret pal.” Through the years we have also had barnie, barbie, startrek, leggo, coca cola ornaments, ornaments that say things like, “to my favorite granddaughter”, “best grandmother” and things of that nature. My grandma worked at Hallmark for a couple years and after Christmas they would just throw all the ornaments and christmas decorations in the dumpster, so she took boxes and boxes of Christmas decorations, hence all the random but some very cute ornaments.

 

 

 

We live in Texas, We are Texans. nuf said

 

These are two of my favorite ornaments, probably because they are from East Africa. I’m not sure who gave us the Africa ornament. I’m guessing it was one of the missionary wives in East Africa. There was a tradition that every year one missionary woman would give, often make ornaments for all the missionary kids. I got the star ornament when I was in Tanzania with the Giddens five years ago, oh how time flies!

 

Every year a couple from my parents Sunday school class give my parents an ornament from Neiman Marcus, this little shiny gold Chinese man is my favorite.

 

My parents first dog was an Airedale Terrier named Jake. I don’t remember Jake cause I was just a puppy when we had him. I found this Airedale ornament one summer and saved it for months and gave it to my mom.

 

 

Once again, we live in Texas. We are Texans. I think my mom gave these ornaments to us our second Christmas in Kaufman.

 

Just about this exact time last year I was in Bath, England, shopping at a little German Christmas market. They had so many beautiful ornaments and I got a few of these hand painted ones, I’m not sure where they are from, I’d like to imagine somewhere in Eastern Europe, but I don’t really know.

 

Last but not least, I gave this ornament to my Dad six or seven years ago. My dad loves to hunt and loves rustic things, so I knew he needed this ornament. I found it in an Ecuadorian department store, I think that’s another reason I like this ornament so much, A rustic zebra print chair with a deer head mounted on it does not seem very Ecuadorian.

Maria’s and Gloria’s

This post is dedicated to my roommate Dana, she told me to blog about Marias and Gloria’s, I think she wanted me to blog about Gloria’s, but sometimes she calls Gloria’s, Marias, so….you get both.

 

First: Marias

When I think of a non American, mostly third world kind of cookie, I think of a Maria biscuit. This is the cookie you can expect to get at any kind of tea time, as a snack at someone’s house, or at church.

“A María is a type of sweet biscuit similar to a Rich Tea biscuit.  The biscuit is round and has its name engraved into its top surface. While the Rich Tea biscuit is the most popular version of this biscuit in the United Kingdom, it is the Marie version that is most popular in most other countries, particularly Australia, India, South Africa, and Spain. Like the Rich Tea biscuit, many consider the Marie's plain flavor to make it particularly suitable for dunking in tea.”-Thanks Wikipedia :-)

Dana had never had Maria biscuits before. I randomly bought some at CVS this past week. I do not LOVE Maria biscuits, but  I was served them many a time as a child, and they are usually yummy. I bought them because I thought they were Marias with chocolate inside….they were not.  I guess that was just a suggested way to serve them….and I was tricked into buying them. But, anyway, I think Dana is a fan of the Maria biscuits, as am I, although now I’m trying to resist buying nutella so I can replicate the suggested way to serve the Maria biscuits.

THEN, Dana and I went to World Market, where they had Digestive Biscuits for sale, which are kind of like a Maria, but better, especially, when they are chocolate digestive biscuits. However the chocolate Digestives were all sold out, so I bought the plain ones, why? I don’t know, now I’ve been left with two packages of chocolateless biscuits.

 

Second: Gloria’s  

Gloria’s is a great restaurant in Addison, just about half a mile away from our apartment. Gloria’s is an El Salvadorian restaurant during the day, but at night they clear out the tables and turn it into a dance floor, with a live band, the place is always completely packed. I used to go to Gloria’s kind of frequently, but I hadn’t been in at least a year.

side note-I had a tiny realization on Saturday night, Dana and I usually decide we want to do something over the weekend, but we don’t usually make plans, which is where we were left on Saturday night, we had cabin fever and needed to get out of the house, next weekend if I want to do something maybe I’ll try to make plans before the night of.

But still I don’t know very many people in Dallas and Dana’s friends mostly had other plans. The two of us were about to go to the Gaylord Texas a giant hotel in Grapevine, just to hangout, see what we could see and find something to do, when Elizabeth saved the day and said she would to Gloria’s.  Not everyone wants to go to a salsa club, where almost all of the music is…surprise, salsa, merengue or reggaeton, but thankfully my amazing friends Dana and Elizabeth are up for just about anything. So we got all dressed up, drove down to uptown to hang out with some of Dana’s friends for awhile, and met up with Elizabeth and headed to Gloria’s. I was so excited. We danced for hours, I think we all danced with some good and not so good dancers, had a few awkward conversations, laughed and gave each other funny looks from across the dance floor, and left with sore feet. You never know who you’re going to dance with or what they may say to you, I never know if I should speak in Spanish or English or just not speak at all. Its a lot of fun though!