a little Thanksgiving, a little Christmas and a lotta Texas

Wow, I can't believe how crazy/busy things have been lately! I feel pretty stretched and tired, but joyful at the same time. I mean, I absolutely love the holidays. Even though every year there are so many bittersweet and sad memories that surround the holidays due to lost loved ones who always made this time of year so special, I still look forward to this season all year round. It's so wonderful to be reminded of all that God has blessed us with and how precious our dear ones and lives are.

Things that have been going on lately:

~Listening to TONS of Christmas music. I have to admit that I have a few guilty pleasures in this department. My two favorite Christmas albums are my two biggest guilty pleasures...

Amy Grant, Home for Christmas 

Mariah Carey, Merry Christmas

Don't judge me. I grew up hearing these albums in my house so I'm addicted. There isn't a year that goes by when I don't blast those albums. A few more of my favorites are the Phil Spector Christmas album, Nat King Cole, Bing Crosby, Elvis and Johnny Cash. How can you go wrong with those artists singing your favorite Christmas songs??

~Visiting Texas: As I mentioned in my previous post, I met David, my mom and Jeff in Fort Worth, Texas where we basically shopped (my mom and I spent way too much money at the Fort Worth Anthropologie which opened the day after I got there), ate BBQ, visited the oldest saloon in Texas called The White Elephant, bought some cowboy boots and pretty much took a crash course in how to live like a cowboy. Of course, Dave loved it... I thought it was fun, but I'd never choose to live there. 

Oh yeah and I fell in the street and twisted my ankle and couldn't run for 4 days, but I think I'm fine. I ran today and everything seems to be ship shape... I hope.

 This was a gorgeous place called the Water Gardens in Fort Worth

These are my two favorite shots but there are so many more at my flickr

 

~Getting ready for Thanksgiving: I went over to my mom's house today to help her cook and do some baking myself. By the time I got to her house (with Christmas music playing, of course) she had already baked pumpkin bread cupcakes and chocolate chip cookie sandwiches. By the end of the day she had also made a pumpkin chiffon pie, a minced meat pie (for Jeff, there is no way I'd eat that), some other kind of graham cracker pie, green bean casserole and creamed corn. All I made was my pear cranberry pie and my, now famous, jam crumb bars aka "Crumble". It took me all day to make the pie because the pie dough I made yesterday in the food processor turned out a little tough so I had to work with it tirelessly until I got it the right consistency. It might not have taken as long if I just remade the dough with a pastry blender like I usually do instead of in the food processor, but you live and you learn. Needless to say, thanks to my tough dough I didn't really help my mom cook at all. I just spent the whole day baking. And thanks to Kim (my sister) for peeling, coring and slicing the pears for my pie! That seriously saved me some time.

my pear cranberry pie!

I am really excited for this Thanksgiving. My whole family is spending the day with David's family at his grandparents' house. Now that there is a certain someone no longer in our family who would have seriously objected to this, and since my family is doing something extremely special this Christmas that requires us to be out of town, we decided to join our two families and make it one big Thanksgiving celebration. When you get married, the holidays can be tricky, so I'm really happy that we don't have to eat two (or three, eugh) dinners and spend it all at one place with our new family.

Well I really hope that you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving and that you are all surrounded by those you love and who love you the most!