Off for the Holidays

My company is nice enough to give us the week between Christmas to New Years off. This year was especially nice because I got close to 2 weeks off. I was in heaven.

So this is how I spent my time.
Christmas Eve headed to my parents place for some Turkey Birria (my dad's specialty) and to see Alejandrita open up her gifts. Now that she's almost 3, she's more into opening up gifts - she really liked the jackets we gave her and the leapster games the uncles bought.

Christmas Day, we hosted my parents and in-laws. You all know I love food and I decided to venture out and try some new recipes. I made a boneless leg of lamb with a wine/mint/rosemary sauce and a sizable rib eye roast with herbs and spices. It was all very tasty, my toughest critics (my twin brothers) enjoyed it for the most part.

My Abuelita spent the night and the following day we decided to make some tamales (beef - red sauce, chicken - red sauce, chicken - green sauce, & rajas [chile with cheese], strawberry ones). We bought almost 32 lbs of masa and it yielded 371 (big and small). My Abuelita joked that the small ones looked like cigarettes but they were still tasty. It was hard work but we had an awesome time, Abuelita shared stories and jokes, as we listened to some Vicente & Juanga to make the time pass.

We also hit up the BIG sales - primarily to get extra christmas decor. I refuse to pay full price and I know, it's a hassle to save something for a whole year but it's so worth it. We did notice that stores didn't have as much merchandise on "sale". But we still managed to wrangle some deals - like the tree garland, some wreaths for the moms, stickers, table runners, etc.....