White Christmas in the Ozarks

Once in a blue moon we get a white Christmas. A winter storm dumped snow on our house in Lubbock and all the way to Arkansas, which is where we spent Christmas.

Byron got his first taste of sledding on the West Farm on Christmas day. The snow was a very powdery, dry snow, and the windchill on Christmas day was in the teens. But, we went sledding anyway.

Riley, Megan and Karen joined us outdoors in the Christmas day winter wonderland, despite the miserable wind.

When I was in high school, we used to get big snows all the time. I built a sled (aka, the Ultimate Toboggan) out of our neighbor's old above-ground swimming pool and a plastic chicken crate. Add a rope and a four-wheeler and you've got one awesome sledding experience.


However, when the snow is powdery and the wind is blowing, riding the Ultimate Toboggan can result in the sledder eating a lot of snow and freezing their face off.

Karen kept to the traditional run-and-jump sledding method...


...while Byron used the Clark Griswold method.


After about an hour, and mild cases of facial frostbite, we called it a day and retreated inside for some wassail.

Christmas Duds

This will be the first Christmas that Byron and I can claim to be full-fledged, married adults. Before this year, we got away with never buying Christmas trees, ornaments, or our own stockings in our single lives.

So, this year it was time to bring out the Christmas duds. Thanks to a couple leftover Pottery Barn gift cards from the wedding, and a nice holiday sale at Hobby Lobby, our home took on a cheerful holiday look for our first official Christmas as the Kennedys.

We also went out on a limb and sprang for the LED lights for the house this year.

I opted out for a tree skirt, because I was amazed at how pricey they are. I rarely wear skirts, so why would I want to spend $80-$100 on one for the tree?

More Christmas Commercials from the 80s

As I mentioned in the last post, Christmas commercials from the 80s hold a special place in my heart. I was a kid in the 80s and that's when the most magical of my holiday memories were made.

I know most of you also saw these commercials during the 80s.

Folgers Coffee




Nabisco Oreo Christmas Commercial - "O, o, o, whose that man with the Oreo cookie..."




7 Up Christmas Commercial One of my favorites!




M&M's Christmas Commercial - "I've got that M&M feelin'..."




And finally...


McDonald's Star Wish Commercial - Makes me want a plain cheeseburger really bad.

That Spirit of Christmas

When I think of Christmas time, I think of a VHS tape my parents recorded when Natalie and I were five years old. It started out with the old "Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer" (1964), followed by "A Garfield Christmas" and concluded with "Claymation Christmas" - all were broadcast on CBS, of course.



Not only were these the best three animated Christmas specials on TV at the time (or perhaps ever), but the VHS also included the commercials from 1987, which are almost as fun to watch as the shows, i.e., Sony's commercial - I'd like a bike, I'd like a pony, but what I'd love is My First Sony!"





Other great commercials included the classic 7up Santa beard countdown-to-Christmas calendar, Oreos, and ads for the limited time offer stuffed reindeer that came in McDonald's Happy Meals.


It has become a Christmas tradition to watch this VHS tape every year. In fact, my mom keeps it in the safe at home. It's been 22 years since I first watched these shows, and it still never feels like Christmas each year until I watch them again. It brings back the magic you feel as a kid during the holidays.



In case you've never seen any of these great shows, I suggest you check them out. Luckily, they're all over YouTube.



"Carol of the Bells" - a segment from Claymation Christmas.
Click here if the embedded video doesn't show up.






A segment from Garfield Christmas. The grandma is my favorite character.






There should be three videos that appear in this blog. If those of you who receive this via email don't see the videos, click the links provided.

Extreme Weather

I've lived in three states (AR, TX, KS) and each state always claims the phrase, "If you don't like the weather in (insert state here), just wait 15 minutes."

Granted, that has proven to be true in those three states, but I've never seen it more prevalent, more extreme and more accurate than in West Texas.


This morning I awoke at 6:00am to a phone call telling me a meeting I was going to attend at 7:30am this morning had been canceled due to ice and slick roads. Yesterday it flurried lightly for a few hours and never got above 25 degrees. In the afternoon, it began to mist.

However, I never heard a weather report suggesting there might be ice the following morning. Texas Tech remained closed until 10am, and so did all of the area schools and the Lubbock County Court House. I didn't make it to work until 9:30am, and even then the roads were still very slick.

However, while out to lunch I noticed a black, fast moving cloud headed straight south. Within minutes, the cloud overtook Lubbock and suddenly it was a monsoon outside. Heavy rain fell for an hour. Then suddenly the sun came out. The temperature was now at 50 degrees. It didn't even feel like the same day.

A sleet mix fell in south Lubbock, while at the same time in Denver City & Plains (not far to the south and west of Lubbock, near New Mexico) were both about to blow off the map with winds steady at over 60 mph.

The sunny sky over north Lubbock (where I work) soon gave way to the brown tint as the temperature rose that is a familiar sight during the West Texas springtime.


Winds are currently peaking out in the 60mph range and tumbleweeds are on the move.

It went from this...


To this in a matter of hours.

LED Lights and Nephews

We branched out this Christmas season and ditched the old energy-sucking lights for the new, fancy LED lights. Actually, we went out and bought eight strands of the old C-9 lights from Wal-Mart, only to discover that you can't plug in more than two strands at a time.

Ridiculous.


You can plug in 110 strands of LED lights together. I'll have to report later on this subject after we receive our first electricity bill after putting them up.

Meanwhile, we've been graced with the presence of a visiting nephew this week. I've thoroughly enjoyed being an aunt. I've even brainwashed one of them into being a Razorback fan...I'm not sure how long that will last, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.


This guy is probably still too young to influence, but he's been a good pirate for Mike Leach's Red Raiders so far.


We already knew we were going to have another new nephew in March from Byron's side of the family, but I recently learned that we'll have one more from my side of the family in July. Can twins have twins? I guess we'll find out!

In the spirit of Christmas

It's that time of year again, and I've already had my first viewing of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation for the year. There will be more, trust me.

So, in the spirit of the Christmas season, I'd like to post one of my favorite scenes from the movie. We got a little snow out here in West Texas this week, but nothing to sled on...and there aren't any hills, so that's a problem.




If you have trouble viewing this, click here.

Amarillo

I am in Amarillo all week for the third year in a row. This is the week of the Amarillo Farm & Ranch Show, the Texas Corn Producers Board meeting, Texas Peanut Producers Board meeting, and the Texas Commodity Symposium that the Texas corn, peanuts, wheat, sorghum and cotton organizations host each year.

It never fails that each year we come up here for this crazy week of events - it gets extremely cold or snows. A couple of years ago on my way to Amarillo from Thanksgiving in Arkansas, I got stuck in a blizzard and slid of the road. I had a full size mattress in my Tahoe (which fits perfectly) and nearly had to spend the night on the side of the road as the snow and wind howled outside. Last year a cold front hit right as the farm show started and I nearly froze just walking in from the parking lot.

It snowed Sunday night as we drove up here from Lubbock, and there's a winter storm brewing to the west that may dump even more snow.

After a few trips through the northern Texas Panhandle over the past couple of years, I have concluded that this is where wind and weather begins. It's always colder, hotter, windier and harsher than anywhere else.