Holiday Spirit

I'm proud to say that I've added the 'Followers' tool to my blog. Given the spotty nature of my posts, I'm thrilled to have any one at all to include under the 'My Peeps' heading. My only excuse for this latest absence is the holidays...and being out of town. Pretty much nothing at all got accomplished except a tiny bit of Christmas shopping, which is something I guess. Instead, we decorated gingerbread men, played football in the park, went ice skating, and toasted marshmallows over a campfire at a Festival of Lights. It was lovely.

The ice skating in particular was very interesting. I haven't been in years and was a little terrified that it wouldn't be quite like riding a bike. I worried that I'd wobble and topple and come away with a bevy of bruises, aches and pains. But...I didn't fall even a single time! The only close call was when my ten-year-old skated up and thumped his skate into mine. But I held on and kept my balance. It wasn't skill, though, that impressed my brother-in-law. It was my gutsiness in wearing whatever I'd scrounged from my sister's family's collection of winter wear in order to keep myself warm. I'm going to try to upload a picture in a little bit, but I'm not sure even a photo will do this ensemble justice: sweatshirt jacket, pale green scarf, Elmo-esque gloves, long, tassled, goofy pale blue ski hat, and vivid red ear muffs. I was quite the sight, but as I told my sister...I was warm. Besides, I didn't know any of those people, and they all looked cold.

The best part about the ice skating was that the place we went, the Ice Palace I think it was called, had these 'walkers' for new skaters. They were available (for a $3 fee) in varying heights, and we rented one for each of my two boys, neither of whom had ever been skating. They were made of PVC pipe, and with all those contraptions on the ice, it looked like a miniature geriatric convention--it was an awesome image. Plus, they seemed to help build the boys' confidence quite a lot. By the end, they had both abandoned their walkers and launched off on their own. I must admit that my niece and I requisitioned a few walkers that had been left behind and raced each other around the rink--she won pretty easily.

Now I'm trying to get the boys to agree to go skate at the Houston Galleria over the holidays. There are no walkers, but it's truly lovely at Christmas time.