As I believe I have mentioned once or twice, 'the Holiday season' starts early here and decorations begin to appear as early as the day after Halloween (and according to one of my American friends, technically it's only early if they appear BEFORE Halloween... yikes!). Brightly colored lights are starting to go up on the front of houses, trees, bushes, mail boxes ... in fact, if it doesn't move, you can pretty much guarantee it will be covered in lights ... together with huge inflatable Santas, Snowmen and an assortment of other Christmas characters. The house at the end of our road even has a Charlie Brown themed display, complete with Snoopy sitting on top of his doghouse (so cute). Apparently, you can even employ professionals who will come round and put up christmas lights for you. They even provide all of the lights. A snip at around $1,000 I was informed by someone in the know ....!
It certainly makes our solitary reindeer look a bit pathetic, although I 'm really pleased with him, and have to give credit to Mr B for managing to get him assembled with all the bits in the right place. Ethan and I were scared to look as judging from previous DIY projects, we were quite expecting to see it's head on back to front, it's legs on upside down, or as Ethan so eloquently put it "it's antlers sticking out of it's arse..."!
There is a house near to us with a fabulous display of fairy light palm trees, and another with a gigantic christmas tree on it's roof! Will try and get photos of those for you over the next couple of weeks. It is certainly beginning to look a lot like Christmas ... everywhere you go. Someone should write a song about that ...
Mr B and I are keeping up with our dance lessons - we're nearly as good as Anton and Erin now ... alright that might be a slight exaggeration, picture Frank Spencer and Dawn French and you're probably a lot closer - but we're still having fun so it doesn't really matter. Periodically the dance studio have what they call a 'Guest Party' where you can bring along a friend (or two) for an hour of fun and dancing and then if they want to they can sign up for a couple of trial lessons for a nominal fee. One of those was scheduled on Tuesday evening this week, and as one of our neighbours had previously expressed an interest in starting dance lessons with her husband, we said we would take them along, arranging to meet for drinks and dinner beforehand. I was really looking forward to it ... until we arrived for our regular weekly lesson the day before and our instructor Sarah told us that she wanted us to do a demonstration dance at the party! WHAT?! A demonstration dance? ... us? ... After guffawing with laughter for several minutes, I realised that she was actually quite serious. Oh God. We agreed on a Cha Cha Cha and spent the lesson practicing a short routine which we would perform the following evening ... gulp.
I spent the next morning Cha-Cha-ing round the kitchen, whilst Mr B practiced in his office at work (whilst on a long conference call apparently ... the image of which still makes me laugh out loud!) and then before we knew it we were flinging ourselves the dance floor like a couple of demented rag dolls (fuelled in no small part by the two large glasses of wine I had thrown down my neck with dinner!). Thankfully, not only did we survive the experience, but I actually think we did a pretty good job (although that may have been the wine again) and it turned out to be a really fun evening. I wouldn't count on seeing us on Dancing with the Stars any time soon though!
On Wednesday, my friend John and I (or as Mr B calls us ... Bubble & Fizz ... rude) met up for another field trip to a store called 'World Market' where I had heard they stocked British sweets .... in particular, chocolate! It turned out to be a real Aladdin's cave with temptation round every corner and I came away with bags stuffed full of loot in shiny gold and silver wrappers. The grand prize though ... a Terry's chocolate orange (which counts as one of my 5 a day right?). It's not Terry's though ... it's mine ... and no, I'm not sharing! Next week's field trip is to IKEA ... can't wait to see what we manage to haul back from there!
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| I feel like I need to add the word 'permanently' to that t-shirt ... |
Finally, last night we all met up with John again who had treated us all to tickets for Las Nochas de las Luminarias at the Desert Botanical Gardens - where the paths are lined with thousands of Luminarias, plus lawn displays and Christmas lights. It was another lovely evening and the lights were really pretty.
John and I also tried the signature drink of the evening (obviously) called The Lumi - which was hot chocolate, raspberry vodka & raspberry schnapps, topped with whipped cream .... delicious!! (Sadly Mr B was driving so he couldn't have one and Youngest wasn't old enough ... shame!).
As we strolled around the gardens, we came across a storytelling session in the Native American village exhibit area, where an Apache tribesman was telling a 'traditional' story to a group of folks all sat in the dark amongst the candlelit Luminaries ... very atmospheric ... hanging on his every word. I'm not sure what story he was telling them, but as we walked past the only snippets we heard were something about dogs sniffing each other's arses .... tails falling off ... "and that's how dogs still greet other to this day ..."!!! All four of us were doubled up in hysterics and had to exit the area immediately.
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| Thousands of lights set into the hillside |
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| Light sculpture exhibits by Bruce Monroe (a Brit!) |
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| Another of Bruce's creations - all made from plastic bottles! |
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| ... and another |
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| Raspberry Hot Chocolate ... sooo good! |
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| and of course no Southwest event would be complete without the obligatory Mariachi band ... |
Tonight we are off to a Gourmet Holiday party - caviar, cheese and chocolate - at the home of another one of my scrapbooking friends, so looking forward to some more festive fun! Can't wait!
I hope you are all starting to get in the festive spirit and I would love to see some of your holiday pictures as your decorations start to go up!
Thanks for dropping by - see you next time!
TTFN
Bev X
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