Christmas break is officially over and I’m vacillating between all the stages of grief. It felt like two weeks absolutely flew by and, although I really do feel like we took full advantage of the break, it still doesn’t feel like it was long enough. I would like one or six more weeks of staying up late watching Parenthood and sleeping until sometime that is significantly later than 7 a.m.
But I realize you can’t live in vacation mode forever. Mainly because I’ve now made three batches of homemade Chex Mix and I’m not sure my digestive system can take much more of my holiday food groups which consist of sugar, butter, and a side of sugar. Although I did make some banana pudding just a little while ago in what I believe to be a culinary swan song to Christmas vacation. Plus it felt like the right thing to do in light of Downton Abbey starting again. You know Mrs. Patmore can probably make a mean banana pudding even though I’m not sure she had access to many bananas. Food history isn’t really my forte.
We had a fun New Year’s Eve at Gulley’s house. Our friend Jamie and her family came in from Dallas and Gulley picked up Mexican food and we all just hung out, watched football and let the kids set off some fireworks that are probably not legal in the city limits. Speaking of football, the Aggies…nevermind. Let us not speak of any more football for the time being.
None of us made it until midnight because we are at a point in life where we realize there’s no shame in welcoming the new year at 10:00 a.m. the next morning. Which is pretty much what we did. Jamie and her crew got to our house on New Year’s morning and P cooked us all breakfast tacos before we packed up and headed to the ranch for the day. Gulley and her guys had other plans, but Caroline was more than happy to show Jamie’s city boys the ropes down south.
It was a cold, rainy day so we spent a lot of time hanging at the house and shooting at targets from the front porch. And taking pictures.
We did drive around a little bit and saw a few deer, some rabbits, and a bunch of cattle. And then as soon as it got dark, we broke out the fireworks that Trevor and P had bought earlier that day.
It was decidedly not safe. There were fireworks going off everywhere and, long story short, P set off something called Air Force Attack that I have no doubt got that name because sparks fly everywhere and you literally feel that you might be under attack. And then we wrapped the whole show up with the grand finale firework called Lord Of War. Because that sounds harmless.
Of course the kids thought it was awesome. And Jamie and I mostly enjoyed watching them have fun with the exception of the sound of 100 shot Saturn Missiles that I will continue to hear in my head through the remainder of 2016. We did our best to take a quick group selfie (a groupie?) before we headed back to San Antonio.
Don’t be jealous of my sweet hat.
Saturday was cold and rainy all day long. We slept in (Actually, Caroline and I slept in. P got up to go to a gun show. As you do.) and then I was ambitious enough to do two loads of laundry before I decided to shower, put on a clean pair of pjs, and sit by the fire watching football the rest of the day. Don’t worry, I made sure to stretch and stay hydrated.
We stayed up to watch TCU make one of the greatest bowl comebacks ever later that night and then it was a rude awakening when P woke me up at 7:45 a.m. Sunday morning to get ready for church. And even ruder when he mentioned that Monday morning was going to feel even worse.
But I thoroughly enjoyed church once I had a gallon of coffee and was at least 65% functional and then we had a lazy afternoon that was made even better knowing that I had Pioneer Woman’s slow cooker chicken tortilla soup in the crockpot.
I have kind of sworn off crockpot recipes over the last few months because I’ve decided they all start to taste and smell the same and sometimes the meat seems weird. But, listen, this could just be me. I also believe they were eating a lot of banana pudding at Downton Abbey and the truth is I just make this stuff up in my head as I go along. Maybe they also ordered Pizza Hut delivery on the nights Mrs. Patmore wasn’t up to cooking. BLASPHEMY!
Anyway, crock pot. I love the idea but just not always the execution. I think I like a dutch oven in the oven better. All that being said, the chicken tortilla soup was a winner, mainly because you don’t have to actually touch the raw chicken. In fact, I just made up a new phrase to describe it “WINNER WINNER CHICKEN DINNER”.
Except I didn’t make that up.
And I don’t know anything about the history of banana pudding.
And I’m also thinking it’s more likely that Mrs. Patmore made figgy pudding. Although I’m basing that solely on the lyrics from We Wish You a Merry Christmas.
Basically, what I’m trying to say is the new Miss Universe is Miss Colombia.