This is an exciting night….4 couples are coming over to experience a true southern fried chicken dinner, complete with homemade rolls, mashed potatoes, gravy and creamed corn. Their entrance fee is that each couple will have to sing a Christmas carol to get in the front door. Frosty and Noel are ready for this big night. We have our reindeer antlers ready to put on our heads, the bread is rising in the utility closet and the Christmas clock has brand new batteries to proudly play a carol on each hour. The phone is set to play, “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” every time it rings; merriment will be felt everywhere. Christmas lights are lit, candles will be burning, it will be a fabulous night.
The greatest thing just happened. Frosty had told me to get out the electric skillet for him to fry the chicken. With 10 people here, it will require lots of chicken, and electric skillets will cook it just perfectly. Now, I had remembered that when we moved in we were discovering that the kitchen didn’t allow for little extras, like big skillets, or platters so off I went in search of the electric skillet. I looked under both beds, the trunk of the car and the storage bin in the garage. Then I remembered, maybe I put it in the cabinets in the powder room,which only had “seasonal” things like extra rolls of paper towers, extra cupcake pans, spring form pans,cheesecake pans, etc., so maybe I should try the bathroom cabinets. Well, I didn’t find the electric skillet, but I did find my Christmas tea pitcher that I had been looking for. There was no place else to look, could it be, hum…..surely not, could it be in the kitchen someplace? I went and got the step-stool out of the other bathroom cabinet and climbed upon it and lo and behold, there it was, shinning in all it’s glory….right above the oven in the kitchen cabinet. I am so glad I didn’t bet on that one. This is the first time in a year, since moving here that I actually found something I needed for cooking, in the kitchen and not under a bed or bathroom cabinet. This truly must be a Christmas miracle. So…tonight, we will be sharing a little bit of the south with our Sushi Friends…..who knows, they might just want to come back over for a little slice of buttermilk pie or grits and eggs next weekend. We just need to break them in one pod of fried okra at a time. We will discuss the next Southern menu over a game of Chicken Foot tonight….should they ever want to come back.

It happened quite unexpectedly this past Saturday. After many trips to our storage unit, we discover that we had left our tree back in Dallas for fear it would be to tall for our new home. Still feeling in the Christmas spirit and singing “Joy To The World” all the way out to Hobby Lobby, which is about 35 miles from our home, we walk in the door with a list of items to purchase. At this point, I am just thinking to myself, “Frosty is absolutely the best husband in the world to come with me to buy lights, ribbon, ornaments, and the real reason we had come….the tree. Let me remind you that we have a small car, which does have fold down seats which have been folded down quite a bit this year, hauling “treasures” back and forth to the house. But we round the corner and there it is….”our” tree…perfectly shaped, already lit, just the right height and…..it is on for 1/2 price, which thrills Frosty to no end. So our shopping trip is now coming to a end. Smiles on both our faces, we pay for our things and head out to the car with Box M, which is the Christmas tree. Frosty is just so proud of his purchase and we skip merrily out to the car already planning how we are going to decorate while listening to Christmas carols, drinking hot chocolate and dressed in our Christmas sweaters. We arrive at our car. Still thinking positive we load 4 to 5 bags of new Christmas treasures in the back and both of us pick up the tree box to push it in any way it will go into our little German pickup. After about 20 minutes of trying this way and that, Frosty begins to undress right there in the parking lot. His shirt flies off to expose him wearing a gray tshirt which as most of you know, Frosty’s idea of casual is penny loafers, button-downed Polo shirt and dockers with a sweater wrapped around his shoulders. So to see him strip off his shirt in public, well, this is just something that has never happened. I think the 87 degree weather has begun to melt Frosty’s attitude. He finally cuts open the tree box with our car keys and takes the tree out, which is in 3 pieces and begins to stuff it in the car. Cars have been coming and going, not daring to park in the empty spaces beside us as they could tell from the glare he gave them if they even thought about parking beside us that maybe they might just want to go look for another spot. Seeing that we have a two door car, both doors are open and people are giving us “the look” for now taking up 3 spaces. But after 30 minutes or so, we are now headed down the freeway with our new tree sticking out the sun roof. We didn’t need to buy so many ornaments as most of the needles flew off on the way home, but it is our tree and a new memory was made on Saturday afternoon, as the first new Christmas treasure I put out on Frosty’s side of the bed is a pillow that says, “Bah Humbug”…and that, my dear friends describes Frosty’s Holiday Melt-down. He hasn’t sung, Joy To The World since Saturday.