I hope everyone is staying warm! I know I’m not. It’s the coldest I’ve ever seen it in Dallas, or it was on Thursday night. I even saw freezing fog during the drive. I didn’t know there was such a thing. It’s a bit warmer now, and hopefully by Christmas it will be actually warm.

It’s nice being around family. And my dog thinks so too. She was funny on the drive. She waited for hours thinking every stop was the final destination. She got super excited for each gas station, looking around like … okay, I’ll make this my own. During most of the drive, she was sitting up in the back seat, or actually perched on my arm rest, watching, until about the time of the freezing fog – Amarillo and about 150 miles of North Texas-Panhandle. I have photos of her in each state. The one on the cover was taken in California when it was still dark at about 6:00 in the morning when we got onto I-40. There she is, as she was for much of the trip, watching whatever it was she was watching. We arrived at Dallas at about 12:30 a.m., California time (20.5 hours after I left my street in Los Angeles), and she barked to guard against my brother and his dog w;ho greeted us outside. Then she got out of the car, sniffed the ground, and knew it was the place she was as a puppy. The smells clicked that my brother and the dog who approached our car are good, and she went straight to the house.

I do have much car fixing to do once the cold goes away, and after the meals that I will cart around to my sister’s house because, sadly, the miracle of fixing my sister does not seem to be happening. I hope she will like the food, and I hope all other family members are supportive in the decision to have multiple meals at multiple places to accommodate the sicker member of this family. Nobody really wants to give up their traditions of their own houses, and then of course, there’s always the impact of my sister’s husband, the Grinch’s inspiration, who won’t let her kids come over for Christmas because it’s his custody time right now. So crazy, but quite predictable.,

My brother has the first episode of House of the Dragon (and the rest too, I think), and my nephew waited to watch the series with me. So with the isolated holiday movie, that’s our entertainment. Plus some live music in various places we will go to eat. There’s more live music in Texas than in LA, which is sad for LA, but I’ll take it wherever I can get it.

With that, I hope everyone has a great Christmas. It’s my favorite day of the year today – Christmas Eve. I always liked my Christmas Eve present the most. That present was my ice skates. I guess I love my Christmas lists, not because I want presents, but because I put impractical things on my lists. My Santa list always had a horse on it. Maybe even my lists here also had a horse; I don’t remember. And seeing as I have a horse, I really don’t need to ever make a list again.

A song for Christmas? Sure. The Christmas station here plays really nice traditional songs. There have been some good ones, but the one I’m going to post is one I don’t know that I first heard last weekend going to see my horse. And it’s about a Christmas list. So I have to go with that song. Be sure to listen to the last line. 🙂

Happy Christmas Eve and Christmas to all. And thanks for hanging out with me.