Day Eleven

On the eleventh day of Christmas. . .

Alright, I admit it I actually started writing these the last week of November and I had the first 8 days or so already completed before the 1st so that if I couldn't think of anything I would be ok. Except then I got busy and didn't really stay as far ahead as I planned and I think I only have one or two more days. So we will see how well I do from this point on.

Christmas Eve dinner enchiladas have been a tradition for my family as long as I can remember. When I moved to Arizona with my Mom and Jenni we were already doing it. My Mom’s favorites were her infamous spinach enchiladas. While those were tasty, I know Jenni was not a huge fan. Her complaint was that they tasted like raw spinach and tortillas with cheese and enchilada sauce. This is not an absolutely untrue statement. I am a big fan of Kathleen’s version of Christmas Eve enchiladas. She makes both red and green, and fills them with cheese, onions and chicken, even though her Mom insists that enchiladas do not have meat.

When Jenni and I were still kids living in Tucson, one of our traditions, in addition to the enchiladas and multiple Christmas eve church services was ‘re-hanging’ the tinsel on the tree when my Mom was not around. It was so much more fun to stand back and throw the shiny tinsel at the tree than it was to carefully drape it over the branches, one silver strand at a time. Once the tree was decorated, when Mom wasn’t around we would take the tinsel off the tree and do it our way.

One Christmas Eve Jenni and I were ‘re-hanging’ tinsel in the living room while Mom was in her room wrapping presents. We were supposed to be finishing our enchiladas, but we had brought our plates in from the kitchen and had set them on the couch while we were busy with the tree. We had Mom’s old Firestone Christmas albums playing on the record player, (sort of like an old school cd player that involved needles, for those born after 1980).

We were dressed for church and were probably minutes away from leaving for a candlelight service. That year Jenni had a red velvet skirt that my Dad’s mom had made for her. Jenni loved it because Grandmother made it, and also because when she spun around the skirt twirled out really big. So there we were listening to Christmas tunes, throwing tinsel, and Jenni was spinning around in the living room, making it merry and bright.

Eventually the noise level got a little too loud and Mom came back into the living room. Jenni was mid spin when Mom walked in so she immediately went from spinning to flopping down on the couch. I am sure her intent was to declare her innocence in the whole affair and pin the blame on me. It might have had better results had she not sat down on her plate of enchiladas.

Guess what does not come easily out of red velvet? Red enchilada sauce, that is what.

When Mom stopped laughing she helped Jenni clean up the mess and after Jenni had changed into jeans Mom asked what had we learned from this experience.
I went with the safe bet of ‘not to eat dinner in the living room’, after discarding ‘not to throw tinsel at the tree’ and ‘no turning the record player up past 5’. Jenni said ‘don’t put your butt in your dinner plate if that is the last serving of enchiladas’

Let that be a lesson to all of us this year.