Happy Holidays!

Hello, December! It’s my absolute favorite month of the year, beginning with my birthday and ending with Christmas and New Year’s Eve. I can’t get enough of the lights, the music, the eggnog, and, yes, even the cold! (See? I really am a December baby!) Give me a cozy sweater, the smell of burning fireplaces in the air, and a large mug of peppermint hot chocolate, and I’ll be a happy girl.

If I had to pick one favorite thing about December (besides spending time with family and friends, of course!), I would have to choose the Christmas lights. It’s a miracle I haven’t caused an accident — I always want to see people’s lights as I drive by! There’s something magical about the soft glow of the Christmas tree greeting you as you open the front door. I always hate taking them down after New Year’s Day. One year I even left my tree up until I moved in July and redecorated it for different holidays and seasons!


I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season!

— Lisa (12/27/11)

Traditions

Welcome November… It is fall at last – Here’s to cooler days (hopefully) and crisp nights, to falling leaves (and lots of raking), past the ghosts and on to the turkey. This is the time of homecoming, feasts, football and sharing. Thanksgiving is the holiday that crosses states and cultures, a day that is celebrated by so many in a variety of ways. It is a day when most people do not have to work and we all pause to enjoy. Whether you have the traditional turkey or whatever tasty delights you prefer, it is the holiday season.

It is in this pause that we can remember, share and make special memories. A favorite of mine took place a few years ago. We were looking at some old photographs, (black and white – antiques I think), of my family. My husband asked “Is that you?”, while looking at a picture of my Mother and Aunt hovering over something on the counter. Expecting to see a very young version of myself, I looked closely at the photo and said, “No Sweetheart, I think that’s the turkey.”

Memories are funny. It is not always the perfect events that are the most memorable and many of the most special ones are created when things don’t go just quite like you expect.


I am fortunate this year to have all my family coming home. (At least that is the plan.) I know many of you with loved ones in the military or with blended or extended families can appreciate that it is not always easy to arrange schedules. But whether you have your Thanksgiving on the traditional fourth Thursday or if it has to be put off a day, or a week or so, this is still a very special season.


So my family and I will take time to give thanks for this wonderful time and season and plan the giving for next month. Enjoy.

— Donna Canales

Holiday Baking, Haystacks & Party Pumpkins

Ahhhhh…Fall is in the air! While some people are generally galvanized into action by the coming of Spring – Spring Cleaning, Spring Break, Spring has Sprung and all that – I love nothing more than the turning of the leaves, the nutmeg scent of holiday baking in the kitchen, pumpkins and haystacks and scarecrows in neighborhood yards, and last but not least…THE PUMPKIN PARTY!

Yes, every year my house is jam-packed with friends and family about a week prior to Halloween for my annual Pumpkin Carving Party. The house gets decked out in its Halloween best. We all get dressed up in our costumes, have a friendly fire in the backyard pit, listen to great music, and of course, carve our jack-o-lanterns before the night is over.

I remember days gone by when all I had was a big spoon, a marker and a knife. These days all sorts of contraptions exist to enable even the least coordinated person to successfully carve a pumpkin without loss of limb. This year, my husband bought the drill attachment for gutting the pumpkins. Any excuse to buy a new tool, right? You just gotta love human invention! When our guests feel like carving, they can design their own or use templates that I provide to create any kind of pumpkin they want. Afterward, we line them all up and take pictures. They look so amazing all together, lit up and glowing…it’s like our own little Pumpkin Shine…awesome!

Naturally, we also have food; what party would be complete without it? But, being a Halloween party, the snacks can’t just be garden-variety you know! The year we bought our house I went all-out and became a regular Martha Stewart (minus the insider trading) and made all kinds of ghostly goodies. These included a 15-inch-tall witch hat made of chocolate rice-krispy treat, and a cookie-and-frosting centipede with licorice for legs! But the budget doesn’t always allow for that kind of thing to happen on my own dime, and so last year I decided to go potluck – in the form of a “Spooky Food Contest”. It was such a big hit we almost didn’t have enough room for all the food!

Entries included such delicacies as Graveyard Dirt (a crushed-oreo and pudding concoction), Skeleton Ribs (spicy chicken filling inside French bread and sliced like ribs), Candy Spiders and Mini-Mummies (pigs in blankets). Prizes were given for Most Popular, Spookiest, Creepiest, and “Gross”-est!

That contest was, hands-down, the best party idea ever! It made for an amazing display of heretofore-unknown creepy culinary skills – people who didn’t even usually cook or bake came up with wonderful ideas and had a great time with it. I can’t wait to see what everyone comes up with this year!

~Michelle

Football Mom

It was the night of the first scrimmage. My oldest son, an 18-year-old senior at Benton High School and a first-string linebacker, was warming up on the field. I, sitting in the stands and in the direct sun, felt for sure that I was going to melt right off that metal bleacher. The sweat pouring from my face was in a race with the bottled water I was pouring down my throat.

I thought to myself, “How in the world can those kids stand to be under all those pads and helmets and still hop around like spring-loaded panthers?”

I could feel the energy on the field sizzle through the stadium. Those boys’ adrenaline was going off like fireworks with every tackle, sprint and block. My own pride and excitement was fueled by the hope that the upcoming months of games would gradually become cooler, eventually and hopefully ending with a freezing cold state championship game sometime in December.

Truthfully, I know nothing about football except that we want to get the ball in the end zone without any flags hitting the field. That’s it! My knowledge beyond that point depends on my other son, a tenth grader, to let me know what is going on. I perk up if I see the coach yelling at my kid, and feel assured he’s done well if the coach gives him a slap on the back.

There is no doubt this time of year brings a sense of nostalgia to everyone. To the football moms, lots of loving emotions mixed with pride well up as we see those babies we raised become men. We remember all the little league pizza parties, cupcakes for the soccer team, and early Saturday games as they began preparing for the future that has now arrived.

So, forgive us crazy women with our jeans, jerseys, cushioned seats, sunscreen, and foam fingers. We will be the loudest ones in the stadium. We will still kiss our kids on the cheek, embarrass them in front of their friends, and might even bake cupcakes for the team, but know that we are the biggest fans under those Friday night lights.

— Crickett Oldenburg

It All Ends Now

For many of you, July 15, 2011, had absolutely no significance other than the fact that it was Friday. But for many people worldwide, myself included, it was the end of an era.

Eight years ago, my high school friends forced me to watch a children’s movie about a young boy who finds out he’s a wizard. Seven books, seven movies, and five midnight releases, not to mention two graduations, two cities, three apartments, and two jobs later, I found myself anxiously awaiting the final Harry Potter movie, the end of it all.

Rachel and I changed into Gryffindor shirts and went straight to Tinseltown after work on the 14th to wait in line for the double feature — a showing of Deathly Hallows Part 1 at 9:00 with the midnight premiere of Part 2 in 3D. We received our special 3D glasses, in the shape of Harry’s glasses (which we, of course, totally geeked out over), and snagged the best seats in the theater — back row center.

Even knowing what would happen, I was on the edge of my seat the entire movie. I laughed, cried (a lot), and everything in between. There were even a few surprises along the way. It was the perfect finale to the story I’ve loved for so long.

So while I had to work on a whopping four hours of sleep, it was totally worth it. There’s nothing quite like the magic of a midnight premiere, with excitement and emotions running high across the theater, and this one, the final, and greatest, movie of the series, was particularly special.

And even though I’ll never experience the magic of a Harry Potter midnight premiere again, the magic will live on in the pages of the books, the scenes of the movies, and all of the memories wrapped up in both.

All of this from a children’s movie I didn’t want to watch in the first place.

— Lisa




Are you ready for some football?

With the end of summer comes a new season full of potential. No, I'm not talking about Autumn. I'm talking about football season—but you knew that, right?

Growing up, college football season was surpassed only by Christmas in terms of importance within our family. It was a time to pull out the team shirts and flags for the house, and support our teams through thick and thin. Now you might be thinking that these items were purple and gold, but I wasn't raised in Louisiana. I grew up in Arkansas. But don't think for a minute that “Woo Pig Sooie” was yelled in our house. My mother was a proud graduate of the University of Alamaba—the reigning National Champions. I grew up cheering Roll Tide and at a young age knew who Bear Bryant was.

If you notice, I used the word ‘teams’ with an 's' at the end. My younger sister, being a defiant child, gravitated toward Arkansas and the Hogs. All of her friends were Razorback fans so she was, too. But it gets even better. My grandmother and grandfather, who lived in the house behind us, were graduates of Georgia and Vanderbilt respectively. Our house was booming with SEC Pride. This did cause a few Saturday night dinners to be a little on the quiet side. But silent treatment or not, I loved the atmosphere that was college football season in our house. There is nothing like a little rivalry to bring a family together.

As I grew older and began to visit colleges and consider which one I would eventually enroll in for school, I began cheering for a new team—the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs. Though they aren't an SEC school and, well, they don't even belong to a major conference—I was going to support my Dawgs through it all. I mean, if my grandfather who says his team can't beat the girls' school for the blind can still be a proud Commodore then I, too, can do the same for the Bulldogs.

Speaking of cheering for a team that has a tradition of losing, my husband is a die-hard Saints fan and has been all 26 years of his life. I didn't even like professional football when we met 7 years ago—I was one of those people who watched the Super Bowl for the commercials. He soon converted me. Mind you, this was still the 2003 and 2004 seasons when I first started liking the Saints. I'm not a bandwagon fan.

This season I will attend my first-ever Saints game. Not only will I get to experience the Super Dome on a Sunday afternoon, but as our anniversary present to ourselves, Husband and I have bought our tickets to spend Thanksgiving day in Dallas cheering on New Orleans. I have been so excited about this trip that I have already planned our tailgate menu. It's going to be a great season for the Cobbs.

This past Thursday marked the official beginning of autumn and, yes, that is supposed to mean cooler weather; but for me it means Saturdays and Sundays—with the occasional Thursday night, Friday night, or Monday night—watching football, watching my favorite pregame show on Sundays, helping Husband with his fantasy football teams, and making tailgating plans. It means calling my mom on Saturday night to congratulate her and her Tide on a victory and ask how my grandfather is taking yet another Vandy loss (though they did win their last game). It means wearing Blue on Saturdays and Black and Gold on Sundays. It means friendly trash talk with friends from all over and a little bit of gloating after a successful weekend. From the first kickoff at the beginning of September—or end of August, depending on the year—to just after the last second has ticked off the game clock on Super Bowl Sunday in February, it's all about football.

~Rachel

Firecracker Fun

Fourth of July was another fun-filled holiday weekend that many of us enjoyed as three days off. This year I participated for the first time in the Firecracker 5K. Although I in no way consider myself a runner, I did enjoy the goings on surrounding it. Before the firecracker goes off signaling the start of the race, it is apparently tradition for everyone gathered at the starting line to bounce around an assortment of beach balls and smaller plastic balls. Though I realized that this was going on, I was still humored by the fact some people were oblivious to it and managed to inadvertently get their heads in the way. Many would get a “what was that” look on their faces afterward.

It was also fun encountering the varying array of costumes—or race attire—worn by many of the racers. Some very serious runners looked the part; those who were less serious looked their part as well. And then there were some...well, I’m just not sure what they were doing. As I traversed the course with my race partner there were several people standing along the sides cheering you on and even some offering frozen pop-ice or water. A few had their sprinklers set up for the racers to run through to cool off a bit. I gladly took advantage of these benefits. Tents were set up post race with refreshment and food choices to help the runners recover. This, too, I took gladly took advantage of. Overall I enjoyed the morning and look forward to doing it again next year. The t-shirt designed for the event was nice, too.

Sunday, July 4, I had planned a trip to Natchitoches with my parents. After church we drove down to check out the activities, only to find out that most of the Front Street businesses were closed. We ate at the one restaurant that was open and looked through the available stores, then drove down to see a few of the plantation homes. My parents had never been to Natchitoches so all the closures were a bit disappointing. There was a fireworks show to begin at 9:30 on the river, but after driving to the plantations we still had three hours to kill and decided just to head back to Shreveport. I was disappointed not to be able to photograph some of the fireworks along the river but was met with one of the best sunsets I have seen in a while. It turned out to be an even better show than the fireworks. Overall my holiday was fun; I hope the same was true for you!

~Jerry