Merry Christmas Eve

Happy holidays which ever way you celebrate them!

I have friends of multiple faiths and they all have different ways of celebrating the season. Hanukkah - the Festival of Lights rededicating the temple.   Diwali - another Festival of Lights when Lord Rama returned from the forest after his exile.   Each way is special to their families.  We have participated in all of them over the years of our friendships.

Tonight Carrie, Andrew, Frank and I ate a non-traditional dinner of crawfish etouffe over rice, a salad (that never materialized), an amazing bread baked wth cheese and black olives and somme incredible pecan pie!

Then we exchanged presents.  When Carrie was little we would exchange our family gifts on Christmas Eve so they wouldn't get lost in the Santa Experience the next morning.

Andrew and Frank got Jawhorses, Carrie and Frank got Rumba Vacs and I got some PJs and socks, a new cover for my phone. 

Carrie and Andrew gave us a weekend in New Orleans at a Bed and Breakfast on St.Charles Avenue and a bike tour of the city.

I am so excited!  It was a wonderful day with my only daughter and her husband.  And all the Bassets and the Grand-Dog Hugeaux!  

Not a single picture did I take.........aughhhh

Happy Holidays from our house to your house.

glen and the bassets

A Christmas Experience Through the Lens of the New Camera

Early this morning, I texted 5 girlfriends and said, Merry Christmas, Darling!  I immediately got a phone call from Diane.  But it was a male voice, and Diane has no man.  He was friendly, and said, thanks for the Christmas wishes, how are you?  I said fine, he said, this is Brett and I don't have your name keyed in my phone, who is this?  I said, glen.  He says, I think you texted to a wrong number........and my wife noticed the "darling".  I said, ohhhhh, so that is why a man called from Diane's number!  LOL.  He wished us a happy day.  I hope his wife got over it!

Frank and I started the tradition of just us exchanging presents on Christmas Eve when we finally got out of his mother's claws when it was just the two of us.  We didn't have Carrie for 13 years so there was a lot of years of just the two of us!  And it worked out perfectly to have family presents on Christmas Eve and Santa on Christmas Day after Carrie came along.  That way it was separate in her mind.

So we did exchange presents on Christmas Eve.

I gave him a larger iPod because his smaller one was filled up by now.  And he of course gave me my iPad, I guess the new camera and a Wipeout game for the Wii.  (I love that show!)

The two father in laws

Remember when I had googled Sexy Gifts for Men?  And came up with the smoking jacket like Hugh Hefner?  Well, he took it out of the package, looked at it oddly.  I said, and this was my BIG mistake, it is a Smoking Jacket.  He put his nose to it and "smelled" odors.  That was it for that jacket........sigh.

  At Carrie's house, the table was a work of art.  She asked me to light the candles and I did so.  But I also knocked over a candle, which knocked over another and another......and well, you know what happened -- they took that job away from me.  After a fabulous dinner of brined turkey/corn/potatoes/green bean casserole/spaghetti , we exchanged gifts with Andrew's parents and the kids.  Carrie got me the ceramic paring knife I have been desiring and Frank got a light for his grill.  Last time they were here for BBQ he burned the chicken because he was literally in the dark and couldn't see what he was doing!

Andrew gave Carrie a red toaster.  I can tell you she was not happy.  Not only does she not like red appliances, she was not happy with him wanting to keep it out on the counter top.  Her counters are free of encumbrances (she does not get that from me for sure!)  And he said he was going to make toast every day for the rest of his life with that toaster.  She replied, and you will be sleeping with it too, I hope you two are very happy together.  To which he replied, well, at least it will cook for me!  (Now she gets THAT from me!)

That horrible storm that hit the South passed right over us, whipping rain sideways and rattling the windows.  But on our way home after the worst had passed, we were rewarded with this beautiful sight.

Unfortunately I cannot get the pictures from the camera to load to the computer so you can't see any of this:  the beautiful table, the sky, the candles, the smoky smoking jacket......

I guess I need to read that stupid camera book......

(an hour later)

I finally got the program downloaded, it was a pain in the patooty.  But I was rewarded with the incredible shots of the sky.  That camera really does take nice pictures.  I definitely have moved up a notch with it.  Well worth the hassle.

Illustration mode

And I played with some features on it.

The illustration mode makes the trees look like drawings.  Cool..

This is the original:  See the moon in there?That was cool in itself!

The WAY COOL 20X zoom.  This was two streets over and across the pond!  WOW!  Clear as a bell!


Ok, I am going to play Wipeout and beat the pants off Frank the poor loser!

glen