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Monday, 21 December 2009

Forced into Garnet and Gold

Anna and Santa decided to shower Reiley in Seminole swag this season. She's a freshman at FSU - she's young and naive. Reiley clearly loves his Gator stuff more.
If you'd like to see Reiley with his new FSU shirt and football, watch his YouTube video.
Higginbotham Family Holiday Favorites

As my mom told our extended family in an e-mail, our traditional Christmas foods are more of a priority to my sister and I then anything else at the holidays. With Christmas only a few days away, we have started pulling out the recipes. Mind you, the holidays don't necessarily mean healthy at my house.
Grandma’s Sausage Balls
My dad's mom from Alabama used to make these every year. They're a nice warm breakfast treat for chilly mornings around the Christmas tree.
2 ½ cups Bisquik
1 pound sausage (1/2 lb hot, ½ sage or regular)
10 ounces grated sharp cheddar
1 teaspoon Worcestershire
Garlic powder to taste

Mix all ingredients at room temperature
Roll out into ¾ inch balls
Bake at 400 degrees Fahrenheit for 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly brown

Cream Cheese-Filled Cookies
For some reason, my Irish Granny (mom's mom) grew up in a Polish community so on Christmas and Easter we often eat Polish food. We don't know what the actual name for these things are but don't let "cream cheese" fool you, it's in the dough so you don't taste it.
1 pound Margarine or butter (softened)
1 pound cream cheese (softened)
4 cups all purpose flour

Mix the above ingredients in a large bowl until blended into a large ball. Flour the board and roll a small portion of the dough. Cut the dough into small squares. Fill each square with a portion of cookie filling (Solo brand. We use cherry). Do not use anything too liquid because it will run. Do not use jelly or jam. (Apple butter is a family favorite and I recently introduced us to Nutella)
Pinch two opposite ends together in the middle to create a diamond shape. Bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for about 20 minutes until light brown in color.

Walnut filling for the cookies (1/2 batch)
My dad and I love this filling for the cookies. It's not overly sweet.
1 pound walnuts
¼ pound margarine
2 tablespoons applesauce
1 tablespoon sugar

Cut nuts in chopper and mix remaining ingredients in bowl.

Granny’s Cranberry Jell-O Salad
We eat this at Thanksgiving instead of plain cranberry sauce. The leftovers are perfect for breakfast the next day and it's the closest to healthy as holiday food comes. I made it for my roommates and friends at school and they're hooked.
1   16 oz. can of crushed pineapple.
1   can (large) of jellied cranberry
1   large package raspberry Jell-O
1 and a 1/2 cups of boiling water

Boil the water
Mix the cranberry well
Drain the pineapple every well so all the juice comes out.

Grease mold (Granny uses tupperware...you can lightly grease or don't bother)*.
Pour ingredients into mold and refrigerate overnight.

* Note: But whatever you use be sure it will allow the Jell-O to come out of the dish/bowl. Granny's Jell-O mold has a "lid" on the bottom so that when you remove it the air pocket breaks the seal and the Jell-O slides out (sometimes needs just a little 'push). Turn the bowl upside down so it lands the wide circle on the bottom.

Sunday, 20 December 2009

Naughty and Nice

With the holidays come family time. Because there is an 11-year difference between myself and my youngest cousin, my my mom decided to remind my sister and I how we needed to behave like role models in front of the little guys.
We are particularly concerned about language. I neither swear like a sailor or talk like a truck driver, but I am a college student. So what I might consider mild lanauge among my peers could elicit a "ooooooo, you said the 's word'" from little kids. (No, the word is "stupid," you sillyhead. We work with kids over the summer, we do have some sense of propriety.)
So we [half] jokingly sat down and to make a list of questionable words and phrases to send to my aunts and uncles. It was fun to think of words, until reality hit that we actually had to watch what we said. For instance, "crap" to me is a kinder subsitute for other four letter words, but to a 10-year-old they're all awful.

Pop-culture references are also out - including my sister's "ra-tard" from The Hangover, which I object to anyway (Yeah, not a fan of "that's gay" or "that's retarded"). I must also reign in my "that's what she said" from The Office, which is a little difficult because the roommates and I have been having EPIC "That's what she said" conversations as of late. But after having to explain the reference to my mother, I think I can contain myself until I see my roommates in January.
Instead of practicing using clean language, my sister has opted to "get it out of her system" until we see them by exclaiming profanities at the top of her lungs at any opportunity. She is evidently not concerned about getting coal for Christmas.

Friday, 18 December 2009

The Christmas card photo

Every year. Every year for as long as I can remember we have had to take a Christmas card photo. For a long time it was just my sister and I. Then when Reiley the dog came along, we tried to include him - when he would cooperate.
We usually take the photo Thanksgiving weekend - especially now that it's the only time guaranteed that both my sister and I will be home at school at the same time. This year we decided to do it ON Thankgiving, in the middle of dessert. Thanks to Anna's boyfriend Zach for being my puppet photog.
To celebrate our college educations, we wore our [rival] university sweatshirts. Our parents joined us for the first time since the '90s , also showing support for their respective alma maters. Reiley didn't go to college and he wasn't invited to Thanksgiving at my grandmother's so he's not in the photo this year.
Those of you on the Higginbotham family's holiday card mailing list (which I have no control over, by the way, so don't get mad at me if you didn't get one) should have received the offical Christmas card by now. But for you and everyone else, this is the photo I would have selected for the card if I had control over anything in my family.

Anna didn't like it so we have a more traditional-looking pose. Meaning, we're not lying in the grass.
Anyway, "from our team to yours", Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Have a happy, healthy holiday season.

Friday, 11 December 2009

Sleep Walking

I know of a few incidents in my life when I went sleep walking. Once in high school I walked all the way across the house, woke up my mom and started talking to her. She quickly figured out I was asleep because I didn't make sense and sent me back to bed.
Before coming to college, my first roommate and I joked we'd make pajamas for me that said "If found please call roommate at..." or "If found please return to room..."
Last night I disturbed two roommates with my nocturnal wanderings. This morning I woke up to find the door to my room open. So naturally I closed it and went back to sleep. Several hours later I was anxious to find out what happened.
When I asked my roommate Mary, she said, "Well, do you remember being up at 5 a.m.?" "Uh, no...." She was up working on an exam and heard someone moving around the apartment. I made some undiscernible vocal noises so she could tell it was me. Eventually she came out and found my door open and I was assumably back in bed.
Later when we told one of our other roommates Katie, she told us she heard noise from the kitchen - the refrigerator and banging about (don't worry, all food seems to be accounted for). And then apparently I moaned outside of her door.
While the stories are funny and a little embarrassing (Katie now thinks I am part zombie), they are a little frightening. What if I had wandered outside? Or tried to turn on the stove or something? The last time I think I went sleep walking was my first night back in the States after being abroad for a month - where I slept in 3 hotel rooms and a convent. I was obviously exhausted and confused, but I'm glad I seemed to have saved the walking for home and not a strange European city.
What's interesting about last night is that had my door not been left open, I wouldn't have suspected a thing. Sometimes my walks or talks feel like dreams because I sort of start to wake up in the process (especially if someone talks to me). I had conversations in my sleep with my first roommate - I even lied to her and told her I wasn't asleep.
So if you happen to see me between the hours of, say, 2 to 6 a.m. and I'm in my pajamas, don't take anything I say or do too seriously. I'm probably asleep.