'Twas the night before the night before Christmas

Lord have mercy, my dogs are barking. Not Pepper and Ollie - my feet! I stood on them for a solid five hours while Mimi and I cooked shrimp creole, chicken and sausage gumbo, and shrimp dip. This was after we shopped at two different grocery stores before noon, plus swinging by the cookie shop to get the cute iced cutouts I ordered.

Last night a teacher friend and I took our girls downtown to do the tourist routine, taking a ride on the river to see it all decked out for Christmas. After almost 19 years in this part of the state, I've never once seen them. A cold front blew through the area just in time to get us out of our t-shirts and flip flops, so we got to wear jeans, boots and sweaters to really get into the holiday spirit.

While Mimi and I were slaving over the stove all afternoon, the girls decorated a gingerbread barn. I think when you live in Texas, a barn is even more appropriate than a house. 

I rounded out my day with an evening run to get an additional 12 qt pot for Christmas Eve wassail, along with several nice ladles and a couple more loaves of bread. I couldn't locate another pack of the cute holiday snowflake Ritz crackers, dang it. We needed more bread because we've decided to use cookie cutters to make chicken salad and pimento cheese stockings, trees and stars instead of just boring old rectangular finger sandwiches. 'Tis the season to cook way too much food and eat leftovers for days!