We've adopted a new Christmas tradition for us, however, one that is not new at all!

Christmas Tamales!

A couple days before Christmas Terry makes dozens of tamales, we sample a few and freeze the rest for when the leftover turkey and stuffing get tired! Yum!

I love new traditions!




Christmas in the new kitchen was a blast! We had 26, yes, 26 people for a sit down dinner! Well, we all sat down, but we set up a buffet for service. The line went down through the dining room and into the living room! I wish I got a picture of that!








We all filled our plates and found a table!













The "adult table" loosely called now that practically everyone is one!











The Grand Dames themselves!












Our living room "Bistro". Can I get a bottle of wine for table 4 please!











The party table! More rolls for table 3!












Just wouldn't be Christmas without the "kids" table! Jello pronto for table 2!










Another new tradition for the Pollards? Kareoki!
They are lovin' it!












Taylor belts out his favorite this year "I Want A Hippopottamus for Christmas". It still is stuck in my head!


Merry Christmas to all!

Sorry this post is so late, but thought I'd start with the night before Christmas Eve. . . all through the house, the cookies were bakin' and Taylor shows up!

We baked and baked and baked in my new oven and look how big my counter is!!







Our WHITE CHRISTMAS EVE!

Yeah! Snow! We headed out for mom's Christmas Eve and low and behold if a truck didn't dump his bed of snow right in front of us as he crossed the intersection! "Terry, do we have our snow tires on!?" :-)






After trudging through the snow, we made it to grandma's and who did we see, but the little baby I used to babysit across the street! Sissy and her family came by to say "Merry Christmas!" Doesn't her daughter make a spitting image of her mom when she was little!









Everyone started showing up in good spirits!















and families unite!












from far and near they came!















and were so delighted to see each other again!










But, it was time to get busy chopping the pizza fixin's in the kitchen! So we got busy!














Everyone had their pizza request put in!












and out came the pizzas. . . yum!












Then it was time for gifts!













And before you knew it. . . we were putting on our nightshirts and kerchiefs. Time for that long winter's nap. Tomorrow is Christmas Day!

Taylor is helping me out with a very special surprise for Christmas.

I can't say very much except that it is priceless and I came across it quite by chance thanks to two members of the family (and one other).

It became very complicated and required much finesse and gentle care, not to mention a bit of research.




Thanks to Terry, too,who also was very helpful to me in getting this implemented.

This is going to be special!

In the sunny LA 78 degrees, I send out greetings of sunshine and fair weather to the East Coast digging out of snow laden walkways, driveways etc.

I decorated the front door, porch and am showing off my wreath sent to us by our contractor who completed our dream kitchen this summer! Thank you Mr. Bailey!













And even got to decorating that poor tree that sat for a few days undecorated and lonely in the corner of the living room neglected. Unfortunately, since my tree is decorated somewhat monochromatic in white, silver and gold, much of it you can't see. I turned on the lights, and they don't even show up. Really, it looks really nice in person! You'll just have to imagine how great it looks! ;-)

Merry Christmas from LA!

It was pouring rain much of last weekend when we decided we had just enough time for getting our Christmas tree.

The guy at the lot triple bagged it for us since it was flocked and so it would survive the ride home. Yeah!

The guys brought it up the back deck to the living room and unbagged it.





Perfectly dry and intact, the tree came in with a little help from the guys.













And now rests waiting for lights and trimming. . . if only there was time.

Merry Christmas still to come.

I came home last night to my house lit up eerily bright!

No one else in the neighborhood had their house bright lighted. It was so wierd and spooky.

I came in the house and looked out the front door to see what was going on and. . .






couldn't see a thing for the blinding light coming from across the street!