The period between Christmas Day and Twelfth Night was traditionally known as Christmastide and has long been a time for over indulgence in all manner of ways.
But how’s it done Texas Style? Well in our case...
On the first day of Christmas, we...
Saw our neighborhood light up with Christmas lights that would make Chevy Chase (in National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation) envious, such as these:
Despite the poor state of the economy, it was clear that the electricity industry would not be suffering.
On the second day of Christmas, we...
Won prestigious awards from the Woodlands Masters Swim Team at their annual Christmas Party:
On the third day of Christmas, we...
Watched “Its a Wonderful Life” (again). Fortunately Frank Capra’s seminal taste of “Capra-corn” is still well worth another watch.
This film didn’t even earn enough to cover its costs when released in 1946 (it cost $3.7M and made $3.3M) but has since been established as a Christmas favourite and has been voted highly in many industry polls, such as “#1 most power movie of all time”. Apparently there’s no truth that the muppets Bert and Ernie got their names from two of the characters in this movie.
On the fourth day of Christmas, thankfully no one got...
Burger King’s new fragrance, called Flame.
Flame is being promoted as "the scent of seduction with a hint of flame-broilled meat". Burger King’s advertising says "Flame by BK captures the essence of that love and gives it to you. Behold ... now you can set the mood for whatever you're in the mood for."
Now who wouldn’t want to smell like cooked meat?
On the fifth day of Christmas, we...
Went to Six Flags Fiesta theme park in San Antonio.
More Christmas lights, but this time seen at high speed and at great heights. If you go, do try the Boomerang, Superman and Goliath.
And since you asked, the name Six Flags theme parks take their name from their first park (in Dallas) and the reference to the six national flags that have flown over Texas since it was explored by Cortez in 1519. And here are the flags themselves:
Spain: 1519-1685 and 1690-1821
France: 1685-1690
Mexico: 1821-1836
Texas Republic: 1836-1845
Confederacy: 1861-1865
USA: 1845-1861 and 1865-Present day
On the sixth day of Christmas we...
Went to Austin, the capital (or capitol) of Texas.
This is Congress Avenue Bridge in downtown Austin, home to the largest urban bat colony in North America (estimated at 1.5 million Mexican free-tail bats). People come from miles around to see the bats coming out to feed each night. Unfortunately they are only here from mid-March to November, when they go to Mexico for the Winter (as well as presumably buying prescription drugs and coca-cola, two other reasons why people go from the US to Mexico - apparently drugs are a lot cheaper there and coke is still made with sugar rather than corn syrup so connoisseurs go there to get the “real thing” [(c) Coca Cola Company]).
On the seventh day of Christmas, we...
Went to Old Town Spring.
Old Town Spring was once a trading post and grew in the 1870s when the International & Great Northern Railroad made its way there. Spring gets its name from the fact that the Railroad construction reached there in the Spring after a particularly hard Winter (Something that’s hard to imagine given the 70-80 degree weather we experienced here in Spring in December). Originally called Camp Spring (three years later the “Camp” was dropped), there were 200 residents by 1903. Now (or at least as of the last census in 2000) there are over 36,000 residents (including us four) in an area of 24 square miles (about the size of Guernsey).
Old Town Spring is now home to a variety of shops (note that the term antique appears to mean junk here in the USA), restaurants, museums and art galleries.
On the eighth day of Christmas, we...
Got some sausages from Elgin. I realise this may seem like a random act in the middle of Christmastide. Surely Elgin is only famous as producing a nobleman that stole some marbles from the Greeks (or at least didn’t give them back when he’d finished playing with them).
However if you were driving back to Houston from Austin on highway 290 you would have passed through Elgin which claims to be the Sausage Capital of Texas (as well as the Brick Capital of the Southwest - and you wouldn’t want to get them mixed up).
We got the “deluxe sampler: a 1 lb package each of: beef smoked, garlic, smoked, smoked hot, smoked Mexican with jalapeno, Jalapeno with cheese, original summer sausage and jalapeno summer sausage.” Summer Sausage, by the way is made in the Autumn during the hunting season (you can take your deer to Meyers for “processing”
if you like). Its called Summer Sausage because it can be kept without refrigeration.
On the ninth day of Christmas we...
Did some Ice Skating
Once again the future of the local electricity company was secure as the Woodlands area north of Houston erected (if that is the correct term for constructing an ice rink) their traditional ice rink requiring vast amounts of energy to maintain a frozen area in a state that rarely gets below 0 degrees.
On the tenth day of Christmas we...
bought a Black and Decker Leaf Hog.
The Sisyphean task of sweeping up piles of leaves from the garden (sorry, its yard here) only to watch more start falling shall be no more.
Well, it still takes a long time, effectively hoovering the garden but I suppose even Sisyphus would have appreciated something to help roll his boulder up that hill in Ancient Greece. [This is a good point to remind you to listen to Chicago’s “Stone of Sisyphus” album, otherwise known as “Chicago XXXII”]
On the eleventh day of Christmas we...
Watched the ball drop in Times Square.
Well, we watched it on TV at least:
In fact we watched it twice. Once at midnight Eastern Time and then again at midnight Central Time when they seemed to want to pretend that it was happing for the first time.
This annual ball dropping has been going on since 1907 when New York Times publisher Adolph Ochs wanted something that would draw attention to the Square (which he managed to have renamed for his newspaper three years earlier - it was before that known as Longacre Square).
In an unusual energy efficient effort (perhaps to make up for the energy required in Texas for the lights and ice rinks) the new ball was made with LEDs and now consumes the same amount of energy as 10 toasters (which those of you who are married will be familiar with, as you will have received 10 toasters as gifts).
On the twelfth day of Christmas we...
Had some beer.
Surely no Christmastide would be complete without lashings of beer, ginger or otherwise (usually otherwise).
First its Big Woodrow’s, winner of various awards such as “Best Outdoor Bar”, “Ultimate Sportsbar” and one of the “Top 5 favorite places to watch an Astros game”.
We made it in time for Happy Hour (BW was nominated for Best Happy Hour in 2001) and I’m pleased to report that we got our money’s worth (but in a similar way to Las Vegas Casinos they more than got their money back as we pressed on long after Happy Hour ended).
Next it was off round the corner to the Richmond Arms, a one of those “traditional British pubs in America”. As usual his means a menu that includes a few token gestures amongst a menu that wouldn’t look out of place in TGI Fridays (I don’t remember my mum ever making “Jalapeno Meatloaf” for instance). Note to pub owner: Covering the walls with old British number plates can’t hide the fact that its not a traditional British menu.
Worse still they had the nerve to sell Newcastle Brown Ale on draught. This would be a serious offence anywhere in Britain, and probably punishable by death in Geordieland.
There were two redeeming features for the pub:
1. They had a Sunderland AFC scarf on the wall.
2. They had a great jukebox ($2 to play a 20 minute track by Rush is great value!).
So there you go, 12 Days of Christmas, Texas Style. Roll on the next holiday...