Merry Christmas!
As always, the Holbert, Herbert, Morris and Gardner families enjoyed a very merry Christmas at our home.
Christmas Eve night, I cooked a big mess of collard greens and a big pan of Dirty Rice. We took care of the gift wrapping and did not get into bed until after 2:00am. I got up at 9:30 and started on my Gumbo. I had shopped for all the ingredients earlier in the week, but the large crabs had been prepared about a month ago. Good size crabs are not available at this time of the year. I had my Manda “Hot” sausage and all of my other ingredients, crab meat, shrimp (large) and the seasonings. We don’t put any chicken in ours, but if that is what you like, have at it. I per-boiled my Okra in a little vinegar and water to take the slime away. Cut up my celery, bell peppers, garlic, green and white onions and a whole lot of seasonings. A dab of this and a pinch of that, a little of this and a shake of that. The rue is the key to the whole thing. After all of that, it came out excellent! The dirty rice and greens were awesome!
Barbara cooked some turkey wings and a good friend sent a roll of Tue-Du-Ken, which we had also. Other friends provided sweet potato pies, pecan pie, coconut pie and lots of other sides
The gift opening went very smooth, with the star of the show being little “Tray” Morris who insisted on opening his gifts one small strip of paper at a time! We all enjoyed watching his joy as he enjoyed his 3rd Christmas.
I think I got more gifts than anyone else. Barbara got the most expensive, classy, beautiful gifts. The Queen was very happy with her Christmas and the way her dinner came out. We probably had about 15-20 people cycle through during the afternoon and many phone calls.