Sunday Letter: 12.08.19

Dear Sunday Letter friends,

I woke up this morning and remembered that my Baylor Bears lost the Big 12 Championship game in overtime yesterday. But what a game! Yes, I’m disappointed, but I’m also extremely proud of the incredible effort and the overall season and the way Matt Rhule has coached the dickens out of a team that only won 1 game two years ago.

If I could invite anyone to dinner, tonight it would be Matt and Julie Rhule. The house is clean, so now would be a good time, ya know?

And Santa, if you are reading, bowl game tickets would fit perfectly into my stocking…

a little Merry Merry

Since December 1st, we’ve been adding a little merry Christmas to each day. I believe if I focus on Christmas just a few minutes here or there, I can spread out the magic of the season like frosting on a cookie. Maybe enjoy it more, if that’s possible.

I love me some Christmas, and I want to savor every moment.

Fair Warning: If you are on #TeamScrooge, you might not enjoy my upcoming blog posts. Or just maybe I can add a little merry-merry to your holiday:)

A few things we’ve done during this first week of December:

Dec 1: rescued my bottle brush trees from storage and placed a few around the house
Dec 2: bought a Christmas tree / strung the lights
Dec 3: decorated the tree
Dec 4: wrapped the porch in twinkle lights
Dec 5: saw A Christmas Carol at TheatreSquared
Dec 6: attended Perennial Garden Club Christmas Bazaar
Dec 7: watched It’s a Wonderful Life

My Christmas enthusiasm took root at birth likely passed along from Momma.

During the days leading up to Christmas, my sister and I often pretended to be elves in Santa’s workshop. To the non-elf, our workshop may have appeared to be our tiny bedroom closet at Nana and Papa’s house. But I swear when we flipped our imagination switches and stepped into that closet, the space expanded into the magic of Santa’s workshop.

Here we are—Santa’s Elves with Santa at the Enchanted Forest (disguised as regular farm girls).

Here we are—Santa’s Elves disguised as Baylor couch cheerleaders. See? Add red scarves and we have on our elf uniforms.

Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-la

This is our first “real” tree in our Fayetteville home! And by “real” I mean full-sized.

For the past five years, we’ve always traveled to Texas for the holidays. Since we wouldn’t be home, we decorated with our small trees and called it good. But this year since we are having our merry Christmas at home, we bought a gorgeous tree.

Absence really does make the heart grow fonder.

I unwrapped my ornaments and greeted each like an old friend—those made by my children, others purchased on family vacations, those I made when I was a kid, some that my Nana made years ago. Each ornament includes a special story; the decorated tree once again holds a lifetime of memories.

Now when I come downstairs in the wee hours, I admire the glowing twinkle lights and breathe in the smell of fir. And I realize our house has been missing this. Until now, we’d not properly christened our home with a Christmas tree. This year, our home feels complete.

Red Roosters

Friday night we celebrated Momma’s birthday with a party and her favorite drink—Red Roosters. And we served the drinks in the $1.00 garage sale punch bowl that’s made its way among family members through the years.

If you read the book Blue Christmas by Mary Kay Andrews, which came out in 2012, you might remember the Red Rooster recipe printed in the back of the story. Momma has been making Red Roosters since she read that book (which is a fun Christmas story, by the way).

They really should be called Pink Roosters…

Here’s the recipe straight from Momma’s recipe book (ripped from her copy of Blue Christmas).

Nothing like a slushy beverage to kick off any holiday/birthday celebration. If you don’t partake in vodka, skip it. Personally, I think adding orange sherbet would be yummy.

Do You See What I See?

I’m always looking at the shapes of clouds to see what I can see. (Another thing I learned to do when I was a kid.)

Check out this interesting one I saw while we were buying our Christmas tree.

Doesn’t it look like an eye? With eyelashes and everything? I thought so.

We are being watched, y’all. ?

Things Momma Says:

(the last time we were home on the farm)

In case my hair falls out, you should know this morning I shampooed with fifty-year-old Head and Shoulders. 

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Alrighty. That’s it for today’s Sunday Letter.

17 days ’til Christmas! Be jolly.

Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.