Christmas Goodies Neighborhood Style

by Celia Hayes

I know, I am trying as hard as I can to get into the Christmas mood – an uphill fight, since I have been sidelined most days by the Cold From Hell. This is the cold that I developed after Thanksgiving, which sends me coughing persistently as if I am about to hack up a large piece of lung. It saps about three-quarters of my energy, and an equal portion of my interest in life, the universe and everything ... including Christmas. The good thing is that I got just about all of my Christmas shopping done, thanks to the internet and a nicely-timed and generous payment for some work accomplished ... so, on to gifts intended for two good friends. At the estate auction in Fredericksburg this summer,

More Flavors of Spain

by Celia Hayes

My mother just sent us a basket of gourmet foods from Spain as a Christmas present for us again, since last year's basket from La Tienda was such a big hit. We loved living in Spain, loved the food, adored grazing from the little plates – the tapas – invitingly set out at bars, loved the fact that a 'bar' in Spain was usually not just a seamy joint serving spirituous liquors to an assortment of skeevey low-lives. A bar in Spain was much more likely to be a kind of café, coffee shop and neighborhood club-house, the place housing the pay phones, ATMs, video game machines, and clean bathrooms ... and oh, yes – serving snacks and alcoholic drinks of every possible description. It also mildly freaked out many Americans

 Looking Ahead – 2012

by Celia Hayes

It's axiomatic that the year seems to fly faster, the older you get. Someone explained it to me, thusly: the year is merely a portion of your total life. When you are four years old, a single year is a whole quarter of your entire life. By the time you are forty, that year is only one-fortieth of your entire life. This makes sense, if you don't think too hard about it. But 2011 was a year of events, portents and wonders. Sometimes I felt as if we were skidding from one extreme to the other, in between every kind of loss and gain imaginable, both personal and professional. We lost my father, for one – the day after Christmas, 2010 – and I spent a month in California early in the year, helping my mother adjust.

Christmas Eve With Tapas

by Celia Hayes

Our family was long in the habit of having pizza on Christmas Eve; it’s easy to organize for a crazy, mixed-up and chaotic evening, with about three generations present. Either take-out or deliverer - even a selection of frozen or ready-made grocery store pizza would do. There’s a variety to suit every taste, everyone can have as much or as little as they like, eat it off paper plates, and clean-up is a snap.

This year, we varied the program, mostly because my mother sent us a massive gift basket from La Tienda, which specializes in the classic foods of Spain, where my daughter and I lived for six years. We fell upon it with cries of happy delight,  reminded of certain foods that we loved. There was a box

‘Tis The Season…

By Celia Hayes

To consider the 153,000th way in which I do not resemble Martha Stewart. Today, I am running a medium-warm iron over sheets of tissue paper, to take out the wrinkles and fold marks. Yes, indeedy, I reuse Christmas tissue paper, which was only slightly crushed and added to the top of a gift bag which we received last year. It’s only slightly used! It’s perfectly good.

I also re-use the heavy paper gift bags, as is our family custom. Some particularly sturdy ones have been circulating for a decade or so, and there are cardboard cartons and a large bag of Styrofoam popcorn in the garage. With a little forethought a sensible person with sufficient storage space need never be caught short of packing materials.

Holiday Decorating Tips for New Home-Buyers

 By Michelle Hille  

You are a first time home-buyer and you’ve just closed on the house that you have always dreamed of. You walk inside and breathe a sigh of happiness knowing that it’s finally yours. And then the sudden gasp of realization that its 10 days before Christmas and you have no decorations in place!

Not to worry, here are 5 fast and easy ways to spruce up the Holiday spirit in your brand new home.Nothing makes a home more inviting and festive than one filled with holiday smelling candles scattered sporadically throughout the house.

* Besides there is a chance that your new home will still smell like paint, so the candles will be a nice cover up for this little problem.

* Decorate

Sing We Now of Christmas

by Celia Hayes

And of Christmas presents, and decorations on the tree and mailing out the cards and all ... we really don't have to go shopping actually, since we do that throughout the year. What we do at this time of the year is to turn out the contents of the 'gift closet' – where we had stashed all the things purchased throughout the year with an eye towards this season, wrap them suitably and send them on their merry way. That done, we turn to the entrancing question of 'what to give the neighbors' for Christmas, or more particularly, those neighbors who are also friends. Something to eat is the standard, but fruitcake is ... well, does anyone actually eat fruitcake? Cookies are ... well, everybody does cookies, and I

Walmart Hero Shout OUT!

Written by Randy Watson

As much as I hate to admit it, I was shopping at my San Antonio neighborhood Walmart this afternoon along with hundreds of others. Christmas rush at Walmart isn't full on yet, but Walmart was full none the less. Fortunately, my shoping excursion didn't include buying any Christmas gifts or toys. I was only in getting some groceries and toiletry items.

While in the toothepaste aisle looking for my favorite toothepaste, a little boy perhaps 4 or 5 walked past a number of people. I thought it strange as he didn't look attached to any of the nearby adults he walked past. I thought he looked kind of like he might be lost. He was holding it together until I bent over and asked if he was okay. (How could

 Lead On, Oh Turkey Eternal

by Celia Hayes

So, Thanksgiving – what about it all just inspires a hostess or hostesses to just pile on the mass quantities of food? Is it the inspiration of the turkey, which just makes everyone suddenly prone to super-size quantities of everything else? Vats of stuffing, the biggest pot in the kitchen full of mashed potatoes and a small ocean of gravy – it's all there, and a magnificent sight it is, the buffet table fairly groaning with the weight of it all – but in the whole of my life I have only once not had to deal with the resulting acre and a half of leftovers after hosting or organizing a Thanksgiving dinner. That one time was the year that I was assigned to Yongson Army Infantry Garrison Korea, as part of

Counting down to Christmas

by Celia Hayes

So, all our basic Christmas shopping has already been accomplished during the year. All we need to do is turn out the gift closet shelves and decided where to send the various choice items which we have bought and stored against the arrival of the season. Who needs to set foot outside the house on Black Friday? Certainly not us – not even for gift bags and wrappings, for we picked up what we required at the post-Christmas sales last year, when everything seasonal was marked down 70% or more. Hey, I am not a legendarily wealthy author, and my ability to shovel money into the commercial economy is limited and locally-based. But I could be tempted this year with a real Christmas tree; our local HEB put them out