Sunday, December 16, 2007

Christmas Parties, Concerts, and a Ballet

We crammed a lot into a few days, starting last Thursday with the Master Gardener Christmas party...a potluck lunch and dirty Santa gift exchange. This year, my MG husband came home with another plant to add to the jungle of plants already in our sunroom. Right now, it's sitting on the hot tub lid. I don't know where it's permanent home will be.



The potluck of homemade food was delicious, as usual. We took a hot corn dish (recipe follows):

HOT CORN

1 stick butter or margarine
1 (8 oz.) pkg. cream cheese
2 (12 oz.) cans shoe peg white corn, drained
1 (4 oz.) can chopped green chilies, drained
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
1 or 2 jalapeno peppers, finely chopped (optional...we don't use them)

Melt butter or margarine in small saucepan over low heat. Add cream cheese mixture with remaining ingredients in 2-quart baking dish. Add jalapeno peppers, if desired. Bake, uncovered, for 35 minutes at 350 degrees.



On Friday, Mother and I went to the water aerobics group Christmas gathering at a local restaurant. In the past, this group did the dirty Santa thing, too, but this year we opted to just exchange Christmas ornaments...we numbered the gifts, and then drew numbers to get a gift. I prefer this to dirty Santa, because it doesn't take as long. Dirty Santa seems to drag out forever, sometimes.



On Friday night, we traveled to another town to attend a Christmas show. The college there sponsored a troupe from Branson, MO, that sang and danced to numbers from the 1920's through the 1960's. It was a really energetic, upbeat show with lots of colorful costumes, and we thoroughly enjoyed it.



Saturday was the graham cracker cookie Christmas house workshop, of course. And then Saturday night, we attended a performance of "The Nutcracker," performed by local dance studios. The show featured two performers from out-of-state colleges, as well. Lots of colorful costumes in this show too...and I love the music from "The Nutcracker."



This afternoon (Sunday), we went to a local college to hear the area's high school jazz and concert bands perform Christmas music. A highlight of the program was a teacher (that we know from community theater) reading "The Night Before Christmas," in a British accent. She did a superb job. We were quite impressed with the jazz and concert bands, who have won numerous awards in regional competitions.

Can't help being of good cheer after all that!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hello Auntie, I got your letter and found the site. I wish I could join the Master Gardeners with "L". I love to garden. I guess that we have a snow season just to make us all more grateful for when the spring comes and we can get back outside again. Love ya, "DT" from "NY"

Sixty Something said...

Hello, Niece - I'm sure you'd enjoy Master Gardeners, if you love to garden. No "snow season" here in the south...temps are in the 50s right now. We might get a day or two of ice or snow in Jan. or Feb., but mostly, our winters are pretty mild. We don't want to get an ice storm like the one several years ago that broke the tops out of our trees!!