"Honey. it's cold outside" Christmas 2010

Today it was 20 degrees at O'mesa and expected to be cold through Christmas. This has not stopped the sub contractors from attending to their chores. Some days it is like a swarm of bees with masons, electricians, plumbers, roofers, rainwater and gutter servicemen and more, all working simultaneously to take part in this creation. We are only 12 days until Christmas so it's a mad rush to complete all the work inorder that everyone take 2 weeks off for Christmas.

We are giving Jim Donaldson 2 weeks off to be with his family for the holidays, a well-deserved vacation for this hard-working chap. He leaves his family in Wimberly and stays at O'Mesa most nights during the week, in an old Katrina trailer we bought for the construction site. He eats frozen dinners most meals and never complains. Many of the other sub contractors are heading South to Mexico to be with their families. They work all year long to save enough money to go "home". Amazing how the holidays invites folks back to their roots. Somehow it isn't the holidays without being in that 'ol familier place surrounded by the sights, smell and sounds of Christmas past. My own mind drifts off to Christmas in Stowe, Pennsylvania.

As children, Tina and I had either new ice skates, a new sled or at the least a new pair of boots or gloves for the winter season. Ice would form on the "alley" where there was a low spot and we would skate in our back yard. About a block from the house there was a large enough hill for us to sled, which was so much fun. Somehow I never minded the cold back then and looked forward to the first snow storm, building snowmen, shoveling the sidewalks for a path, wiping the snow from the windshield of the car and layering in all our woolen clothing, some that still smelled of moth balls. O'Mesa will never have this much snow and ice but it does get brisk in Fredericksburg in the winter. Today was one of those days.

As for the sights, smells and sounds of Christmas, it wouldn't be Christmas without Dad's Christmas Fruit Bread Stollen and Mom's Greek Pastries. This year Bill wants us to bake our favorite family foods. His is his grandmother, Mae O'Brien's "nut cakes" with raisens soaked in bourbon. Mine is my Dad's bread. Next week we will spend a day making these traditional foods for our children and hope one or more of them will enjoy keeping these foods on their holiday table as well. These are the blessings of Christmas: a warm home, family to share, foods to enjoy and gifts from our Savior. I can smell that bread baking already!