CHRISTMAS IS TOTALLY IN THE AIR

Sorry I didn't say "holidays" are in the air...but for me it's Christmas. And I grew up in a pretty religious free home so Christmas to me was all about presents and family. I friggin' loved it! I guess that's what it is for most kids, but seriously, I didn't even know about Jesus' birthday until I was in my 20's. Well, maybe a little younger.

I do have one memory that even beats out Christmas morning. It was the wrapping parties we had growing up. We'd all pick a day to go Christmas shopping. We'd head to downtown Boise or the Mall (both of those things were very small in Idaho in the 70's). Then we'd drag our booty back home, make lots and lots of yummy hors d'oeuvres and make tents from blankets and pillows in the family room and all wrap our presents while stuffing our pie hole with everything from pickled herring (my family was weird) to those little pizza bites. Hell, I cannot for the life of me remember the name of them. You know the ones, they come in the yellow box and have about a dozen and they are frozen and you put them in the oven and they become little molten lava pizza bites. Damn those were good. We'd have olives and cheese and crackers, and smoked almonds! We only had smoked almonds at Christmas. One year we had caviar. It was gross. But nice try Mom and Dad.

Anyway, when the tree went up this week...I started remembering Christmas' as a kid and how much those wrapping parties meant to me. I think it was the fun of making a fort with everyone else in the same room and eating. God I do love eating. Too bad you have to be so good about eating when you get older. Seriously...if I ate what I wanted to, I'd weigh a good 300 pounds. You know what? Don't grocery shop when you are hungry and don't blog when you are hungry.