For The Journey Not just the destination…

Before Christmas, I had been doing alot of thinking about my family’s traditions – I was having a hard time thinking of many. However, we did one of my favorite family traditions tonight. We played Canasta and Dominos. Yours truly won both games, but the domino queen in the picture is my Mama C.

The other good thing about family visits is the food. Being the southern family we are, there is no lack to the amount of food we have – always a large selection. Here are some of my favorites so far – I definately need to get the recipes to some of these.

* Chicken and spaghetti casserole
* Mimi’s jelly cookies
* Lemon Sourhead cookies (for Thomas, I don’t like lemon)
* Hot sausage breakfast casserole
* Throw-it-together chicken and dumplings
* Pecan cheese ball
* Tangerine cranberry cheese ball
* Hot chocolate with homemade whip cream and shaved chocolate on top

Another family picture – this one includes Me, Aunt Derelys, Uncle Charles, Great Uncle David, Mama C, Dane, and Dad.

I’ve been tagged by Brit again. I’ve modified some of the questions since I’m not a runner. Same as last time, I’m holding off from tagging others, but I like to read these, so if you post this in your blog, send me the link.

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Never had egg nog, so I’ll vote for hot chocolate. I can’t imagine drinking egg. Hot apple cider is pretty good too.
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? He wraps, but its usually the same paper as Mom and Dad use. There’s also usually fancy bows and recycled/leftover paper.
3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? I vote for white. When I was little, we had the large colored lights on our house, and I always thought it made our house look like a sombrero.
4. Do you hang mistletoe? Nope, the holiday is spent just with family.
5. When do you put your decorations up? Since I’m usually going to someone else’s house, I don’t decorate. Hopefully I will when I host Christmas some day.
6. What is your favorite holiday dish? Sweets with pecans
7. A favorite Holiday memory as a child? Getting a microscope in about 5th grade, and then fainting when I saw my dad’s and uncle’s bloodcells up close.
8. What is your favorite Christmas movie? The Christmas Story – “you’ll shoot your eye out”
9. What is your favorite Christmas song? Christmas Wrapping by the Waitresses
10. Snow! Love it or Dread it? I love it and I miss it.
11. What was your most favorite Christmas purchase this year? I’m excited about the gift I gave Thomas – hanggliding lessons – because I get to go with him.
12. Where was your favorite holiday trip? Last year, Thomas and I drove cross country from IN to TX and stopped to stay with all of my mom’s family along the way.
13. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? Peanut butter cookies with hershey kisses that Aunt Mary makes
14. How will your holiday be different in 2006? Hopefully Thomas and I will be together.
15. Name one thing you like about blogging: I love getting comments.

I’m in Houston with my mom’s family to celebrate Christmas. I hope y’all are having a very merry holiday. The photo shows, from left to right, Me, Aunt Ducy, Uncle Charles, Aunt Derelys, Mama C, Dane, Mom, and Dad.

There has been a meme going around that prompts you to take the first sentence from each month of your blog, and post it as a year end review. This list misses some major things of this year for me, but here’s mine:

* January: We had a great vacation.
* February: Well, I heard on the radio this morning that Winter isn’t over yet.
* March: Happy 3rd birthday, to my little girls.
* April: Just posting a quick note that I’m still alive.
* May: Thomas has a habit of bringing me flowers when he gets back from being out of town, especially when he borrows my car for the trip.
* June: So Ibiblio.org has asked me to find a commercial provider.
* July: I’m too excited to even think up a witty way to announce this in my blog. I bought a house this weekend!!!
* August: Since I started living with Thomas, we’ve become a shoes off house.
* September: Dad drove down last weekend to drop off Clover and some furniture, but he also stuck around for the week and did some fixit projects around the house, not to forget all the yardwork help he did last weekend.
* October: Did you know that most Cabbage Patch Dolls have October 1st birthdays?
* November: I finally finished my rooster kitchen curtains this weekend.
* December: There’s a bedroom suite that I saw in a magazine that I really like.

I have been infected by Brit, so here are my answers to the following meme. Note: I’m going to pass on “infecting” more people this time, since last time I tagged others, I didn’t get a very favorable response. If you do post this meme in your blog, feel free to let me know in the comments.

Write 5 random facts about yourself, and then list the names of 5 people whom you in turn infect. Also, leave a post to these people letting them know they have been infected.

I chose to make them all ‘name’ themed:

1. I have lived in 5 states (WA, GA, FL, NC, and IN) and none of them were Texas. When people hear my name, they usually ask if I’m from there.
2. My favorite nickname growing up was “Big D, little A, double L, A, S”, that my 2nd grade teacher would call me. I learned a couple years ago that it’s from an old country song.
3. SALLAD, as in Sallad.net, is my name backwards. Some people don’t realize that.
4. My least favorite nickname I’ve ever had is “Das” which comes from my initials, and is pronounced “dass”.
5. Supposedly, if I were to be born a boy, my name was going to be Blair. I like Dallas much better, and it is a unisex name.