FROM THE LOFT BY
The holidays are officially over. I even took my Christmas tree down yesterday and packed away all the decorations. Don't tell my mother that I didn't leave the nativity scene up until the 6th of January. It is believed that that is the day the three wise men finally arrived to bring their gifts to Jesus. Up north, where I grew up, we always kept our tree up until the 6th and then had a day of mini-celebration in recognition of the magi's' visit. One of us kids would be chosen to put the wise men in the nativity scene, then we would have cookies and hot chocolate. Sometimes we even received a small present. When we first moved to Texas it was hard to adapt to the Southern tradition of taking the tree down long before January 6th, and basically ignoring January 6th as a day of significance, but expediency won out this year. Since Sundays are days I usually enjoy watching TV with my hubby, yesterday was a perfect day to undo all the decorating while the football games were on. Another tradition we had a hard time with when we moved from Michigan to Texas was eating black-eyed peas on New Year's Day for good luck. I like black-eyed peas, but my husband doesn't and neither did our kid when they were young, so there was no way I was cooking a pot of peas just for me. After a few years of living here and having a bit of bad luck each year, some friends told us the bad luck was because we did not eat the traditional peas. So one year we decided to try it. And... you guessed it. We had even worse luck the next year. I didn't think it had anything to do with eating the peas or nor, but my husband was so upset he banned black-eyed peas from our home. Like the dutiful wife that I am, I followed his command for many years, only eating black-eyed peas when we went out to dinner and they were available on the menu. But this year, I snuck a can into the house. Don't tell him, but I also snuck some into the big pot of soup I made last week and he didn't even notice. I didn't do it for luck. I did it because I really love black-eyed peas. Even those that come in a can. Until next time...... ************* If you are interested, I do write regularly on my blog so you can always hop over there to catch up with me if I haven't updated this column in a while. I try my best, but gosh there is so much to do. |