We had wonderful Christmas last couple of days. Last night, we had our traditional visit with my dad’s father, ‘Buelito, and his extended family. We played Loteria, which is a sort of Mexican bingo. Then we had dinner, with arroz and tamales made by Tia Licha, and beans and chile. Tia Liche made a special, small batch of hot tamales, beans and jalopenos. I parked myself in front of them, and had LOTS. Later, we decorated cookies, including some made for Santa. The evening ended with many pictures being taken with ‘Buelito, from just the nietos, to just the primos, to just his children.

Then we headed back to my folks house for our immediate family tradition, which has evolved over the years as by brothers and I got married and added and mixed traditions from our spouse’s families. We took lots more photos, exchanged family gifts and stockings and played around ’til late at night. I helped by mom with the computer again, listening to their new speakers and finding music on the internet for her.

Christmas morning, the Downey’s, who have been participating in all these activities with us, joined us again so we could exchange gifts from them and Santa Claus, and open the Santa stockings. I made some last minute edits on my Christmas music cheat sheet, printed it out, showered and got ready to visit my mom’s folks.

At their house, Aaron and I set up his bass and amp, first time ever we had a bass at Grandpa’s house. We did some quick, quiet rehearsing, using only roman numerals and key suggestions. For those of you who know what that means, it’s because Grandpa told me before hand which keys to sing in, but sometimes we change our minds, and I wanted to be able to adapt, hence, I wrote the changes using roman numerals. Then Grandpa, Aaron and I led the Christmas carols. Aaron did wonderful job, as usual, and was able not only to follow the changes, but add really nice passing notes. I was very proud of him, especially when Grandpa nodded to me his approval on Aaron’s musicianship.

A gift exchange followed, which takes a long time, due to all the cousins, aunts and uncles. Later, Grandpa asked me to come inside and show him the bridge to ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town,’ a song he didn’t know entirely. After that, we practiced a few Mariachi songs from ‘the old days’. I got Aaron to video tape us, er, DVD us, and we were joined by my Tia Annie, who knows all those songs and has a nice voice. I was able to follow Grandpa as he showed me the chords, and then after a while, he stopped playing so he could concentrate on remembering or reading the words whileI accompanied him and Annie. I really, really enjoyed that, and by the look on his face, Grandpa really did, too. He’s 96 years old!

THEN, we went back to my folks’ house, where I helped mom finish dinner preparations, with Cyndi and my sister-in-laws. We prepared a ham, yams, green salad, potato salad, green beans and wine. Dessert was home made pecan pie, from Grandma Lou. The boys had been playing video games, but packed up to spend the night at Mike’s house. Arianna and Mark’s wife, Rae, spent some time playing with Arianna’s new Indiana Jones Lego set, but Rae had to go home(she’s working tomorrow morning, ugh), so Cyndi took over. Mom and Dad chatted with Lou and Paul for a while, and now I am writing this blog to capture the events. I love Christmas here in San Antonio! Hope this finds all readers enjoying Christmas where ever they are.