Christmas

 This is a (blurry, sorry) photo of our Christmas tree. I mentioned that I had to put it up on a small ottoman (covered with a quilt) because it looked so small in our front room.

See? That's a six foot tree! I bought it because I wanted a tree taller than I am (5'10") but not so tall that Dave (6'4") couldn't reach the top. When we set it up, it looked so small. Even putting it up by another two feet or only helped so much. I feel like our next tree needs to be seven and half or eight feet.

On Christmas eve day, we went around and dropped off cookies and visited with a few people. We texted others. Exchanged gifts with some. (Mostly I sent online gift certificates or food or baked goods through the mail.) Then we came home and quickly made dinner.

Our Christmas eve dinner was traditional-ish New Mexican: Vegetarian posole and biscochitos. (We could have had tamales, but vegetarian tamales are generally pretty sad.) I made the posole and Dave made the biscochitos.

It's pictured here with the traditional accompaniments of lemon, dried oregano, and chopped onions. I've seen other people serve it with lime and chopped cabbage and sliced radishes, but in my family it's always been lemon, dried oregano, and onion. (Those are aloes and cactuses on that napkin in the foreground, by the way.)

Our Christmas Day dinner will be mac and cheese and roasted Brussels sprouts. We have Judi's buche de Noel for dessert.

My mother texted early this morning and sent a photo of me on Christmas morning in 1977. I was sitting on my grandmother's couch opening a wrapped present. Dave asked me what it was and I wouldn't have sworn to it, but I knew that it was one of those Colorform toys. Later, I found another of the photos from that same morning and I was right. It was this Raggedy Ann Doll House Colorforms:

(That photo is from the internet.) I sent my mom this photo in return:

The same year, the same couch. I wonder is she remembers what her gift was.