The last five days have passed in a blur of basketball games and christmas cookie recipes, with a funeral in the middle just to harsh my mellow.  I felt kinda bad about ignoring this and all my adoring fans and then I remembered that no one reads this and I was all happy again. 

I was going to take last week off and around Friday I realized that I really wanted to take this week off and I couldn't afford to take 'em both so I worked like a moron all weekend, and by Tuesday had enough orders filled to get by until New Years.  Or Jay will support me, he doesnt mind.  Besides, we'll have so much leftovers from Christmas that I won't need grocery money.  Or we'll be so stuffed it'll be a good time to cut back on calories.  Whatever.

Since Tuesday afternoon I've made crinkle cookies, austrian chocolate balls, orange meltaways, chocolate pecan crinkle cookies, mint creams, and ginger snaps.  Tomorrow I'll make fudge and Saturday, coconut bars.  That should be enough.

I've been trying to find time to write a Christmas card letter and I finally handed it off to my English major daughter, Miss Smarty Pants.  This is what she gave me:


Merry Christmas!

As we reflect on the year that is drawing to a close, I am reminded of the moments in 2006 that truly embodied what it means to be a family:
              Mama's little bird finally left the nest.  Four years after his sister moved across the country, eventually to conquer the European as well as North American continent, Tyler decided to cut the apron strings and move more than forty five minutes away from his childhood home.  He left in the middle of the night with a case of beer and a cooler full of tacos, swearing he would make it to Mexico by daylight. No such luck, he got waylaid in Austin Texas.  He is currently going to graduate school and coaching basketball at St. Edward's University.  Go Hilltoppers!
              Katie came home from Europe and never left!  We got to be joyous host to our eldest daughter for nine blissful months before we could convince her to get off our couch and go back to school.  She eventually went back to New Orleans and Tulane in September to finish her senior year of college, took the Law School Admissions Test on a dare and scored in the 99th percentile.  She is currently debating going to law school versus following her lifelong ambition to be in the Guinness Book of World Records.  Nobody can eat more raw oysters in one hour as our little girl.  Either way it is a comfort to know that the $120,000.00 it cost to give her four years in New Orleans wasn't spent in vain!
              You may say a lot of things about Zack, but don't say that he doesn't love to learn.  Seriously, don't you ever say that.  I will punch your stomach.  In fact, so great is his yearn to learn that for the second year in a row he opted to spend his summer in school, alongside other  like-minded scholars.  Though we had expected him to go for the three-peat, it seems once again he will thrash all expectations, much like Houdini confounded the expectations of audiences in the late 1800's.  If only I could travel back in time and expose that trickster.  If only.  Sigh.  Zack is passing all his classes, playing for the Southwest Varsity basketball team, and far on the path towards enlightenment.  He almost knows the sound of one hand clapping.  Now, if he would just get his driver's license.
             Josie is still living in the shadow of her older sister, though now she almost eclipses her in both height and ass-kicking.  (I said almost, Josie, don't get any ideas!) She is burgeoning (and by now you should know who is writing this, as neither of my parents know the word "burgeoning"--seriously, I am smart.  And good looking.) into a lovely young lady, and just got her red belt in karate.  She loves puppies and hates skiing.  I saw her make this realization as she rode up the ski lift fot the first time on our family's trip to Vail this winter.  There she was, alone, tiny legs dangling, head bobbling like the Torii Hunter on my dashboard, coming closer and closer to the top of the mountain and doom.  She reached the summit, her legs buckled and she flung herself from that lift with all the dignity of her ten years.  A piece of Josie died that day, on top of the Rocky Mountains, an irreplaceable essence of innocence, the soft wonder of childhood.  I saw it all, and I laughed.
             Dad is still sarcastic and combative, Mom is still right.  Love to all in this joyous season,
                                                                                                                                                      Los Pivecs

 

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