One resolution... just one

As 2011 comes to a close and 2012 prepares to roll in, I find myself tapping my pencil against a notepad, hoping to come up with some resolutions for the next 12 months.

Over the years, I've changed my philosophy about making New Year's resolutions. When I was younger, the list was all about improvement –clean out my dresser and organize my closet.

Then I went through a phase where resolutions were all about personal growth – lose weight, be nicer to people and try to not lose my temper while in traffic.

There were a few years where I refused to make resolutions, believing they were limiting and often unattainable although they were made with good intentions.

But not having any resolutions for a new year left me with nothing to shoot for, and drifting through life without any goals felt a bit lazy.

So I began thinking about what resolutions are supposed to accomplish. If I look up the definition of the word "resolution," it means a firm decision to do something.

At the end of December, I'm quite dogmatic about the resolutions I've committed to a piece of paper. Come the end of January, I'm wavering. By the time the ides of March rolls around, I've totally forgotten what I wrote down and am back to my old ways.

They were good intentions at the time they were made, but as my Grandma Marguerite used to say, the road to perdition is paved with good intentions.

As I wrote down resolutions, crossed them off, and tried to think of what I wanted to accomplish this year, I thought about a year where I made only one resolution, and I kept it all year long.

The resolution was to do something fun once a month. That might seem odd, but in a world where we work 12 hours a day and spend the weekends running errands and the washing machine, having fun is a luxury I often put on the back burner.

I remembered the qualifications for accomplishing the resolution. The outing didn't have to be extravagant or expensive, but it had to move me out of my comfort zone.

One month, I had lunch at a Lebanese restaurant in Houston, one I'd read about but never had time to explore. The food was delicious, and I savored every bite that Saturday afternoon.

Another month I visited the antique shops in downtown Rosenberg. I found myself going down memory lane as I saw plates and serving trays from my grandmother's kitchen and lost myself in an old red and white checked copy of Better Homes and Garden's cookbook, similar to the one my mom used when I was growing up.

I went to a theatre production one Sunday night, finding my way through downtown Houston adding to the adventure. Another month I visited a friend, and we had lunch at an out-of-the-way cafe.

One month, the money I would've spent on my resolution went to a charity and another month the money went to a family member so they could have some fun.

Knowing someone was stepping outside their comfort zone fulfilled the resolution for me and, at the same time, made me feel a little less selfish.

So this year, I'm going back in time and making a resolution to do something different once a month. It's not a resolution that's going to change the world, but it's often in the small details where we find the most clarity.

Happy New Year!

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

And to all a good night...

In most families, there are movies that stay at the top of the watch list, especially around the holidays. My sister and her husband don't consider it a true Christmas unless they've watched "A Christmas Vacation" while decorating the tree.

When I was younger, my family always watched "The Wizard of Oz" at Thanksgiving, knowing the movie was the first harbinger of the Christmas season.

In December, I look for "A Christmas Carol," a 1950's black-and-white movie starring Alastair Sim as the crotchety Ebenezer Scrooge. It's one of my favorites and always introduces the yuletide season. For the Hebert family, nothing beats the musicals, especially "Fiddler on the Roof." My dad was profoundly affected by the film, and my mom said he choked up every time one of Tevye's daughters left home.

Every song in "Fiddler on the Roof" is etched into my memory because my mom played the soundtrack constantly. We know all the dialogue, and we sing along with every song, from "If I Were a Rich Man" to "Matchmaker, Matchmaker."

Tevye, the father of three daughters, is my favorite character in the movie because he evolves and changes as he experiences prejudice, his daughters' wishing to make their own decisions and then having to leave his hometown.

What connects Tevye to the universe is tradition. As life evolves, Tevye keeps some traditions while leaving others behind. I think about Tevye every Christmas as we maintain the traditions I grew up with and add new ones as our family changes and evolves.

For over 35 years, everyone in the Hebert family met at my parents' home on Christmas Eve. My mom always made a huge pot of gumbo, enough for over 50 people, and everyone brought their own special dish to add to the banquet.

My brother, and then his children with him, serenaded us with guitars and Christmas songs as everyone waited to open gifts, the children first and then the adults. Laughter filled the air, and every Christmas has its own special memory -- the year my we all made the gifts for each other and the ritual of taking the huge family portrait.

The first Christmas Eve after my father passed away was difficult. It was his tradition to read the Bible passage of the birth of Christ, and we knew we'd miss him even more at that moment. But my brother quietly took over dad's duties, keeping what we did in spirit but adjusting to the changing times.

As we brothers and sisters became grandparents, we adjusted again, and many of us were no longer able to all travel to my mom's for Christmas Eve. As heartbreaking as it was to miss the family gathering, my mother had some sage advice for those of us who couldn't make it. She said traditions are what bind us, but making new ones is what keeps the family connected from generation to generation.

So this Christmas Eve, I'll be making a pot of chicken gumbo but adding a few Texas dishes to the menu.

We'll still read the passage from the Bible and I hope my son will serenade us with his guitar.

My wish is that other families can also honor the past, celebrate the present and create for the future so that, despite what obstacles and triumphs come our way, all our Christmases may be bright.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

The best wrapping paper of all

The bed in our back room is covered with plastic bags, the result of my hitting the holiday sales over the past few weeks. I've got a mountain of gifts to wrap, but I'm armed and ready.

Like most thrifty shoppers, I've got at least five rolls of holiday wrapping paper in the back of my closet. I can't resist the after-Christmas 75 percent off rolls of paper; and by the time the 90 percent rolls come around, the paper's almost free.

Of course, there's only about three feet of paper on the rolls and the printing is sometimes off center. Santa might be wearing a Hawaiian shirt and the reindeer often look like beavers, but at 90 percent off, who's complaining?

Over the years, I've camouflaged gifts in a variety of wrapping papers. One year, I used the comics pages from the Sunday paper. I saved those comics for over three months, but I still ran out at midnight and resorted to using remnants of rolls from the past three Christmases.

Then there was the year I decided to wrap everything in brown paper. I got the idea from my sister-in-law, Janet, who wrapped her gifts in brown paper and had her children decorate the outside with free-hand drawings.

What I didn't know is that brown wrapping paper is heavy and practically requires duct tape to seal the edges shut. And while her children drew pretty candy canes and snowmen on the front, my boys went all out with Ninja Turtle battles and blood-drenched superheroes.

And then there's the matter of the labels. I've used old computer labels, index cards cut in half and I've even written right on the wrapping paper. My boys believe masking tape is the perfect to/from label – cheap, easy to write on and the vanilla color stands out against the red and green.

But no matter how the gift is wrapped and tagged, the best part of wrapping gifts is making bows. I have three coat hangers in my closet, each one holding four or five different spools of curling ribbon.

It's easy to cut the exact length I need and I can use a variety of colors for a one-of-a-kind bow. I spend quite a bit of time making sure the bows match the wrapping paper, and then I use the edge of the scissors to curl the ribbon into long tendrils.

I settled on curling ribbon after the year I decided to use raffia to decorate the boxes. Martha Stewart promised that raffia-wrapped gifts would be the hit of the evening. So I wrapped every single box with strands of red raffia and tied big raffia bows to the fronts.

They looked fabulous underneath the tree. The only problem was nobody could pull the raffia apart, and we ended up using scissors to cut every single bow and raffia ribbon from every single present. The boys made me promise I'd never try to copy any more gift wrapping ideas from Martha.

Instead of chasing after trendy gift wrapping ideas, I should probably follow the example of my son, Stephen. He's found the perfect wrapping paper for birthdays and Christmas – aluminum foil.

Not only are his gifts instantly recognizable, our Aggie claims the receiver can then use the foil in the kitchen or to clean off the barbecue grill.

Foil – the perfect gift wrap – recyclable, original and cheap. Now that's what I call creative gift wrapping.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

Where there's smoke, there's an inattentive Facebooker...

There are two ways to test a smoke detector. One is to stand on a chair and press the "test" button.

The other is to fill your kitchen with smoke and see if the alarm goes off.

One guess as to which option I chose.

The story starts out innocently enough. I had a left-over ham bone in the fridge and decided to make some soup. My husband was away for a couple of days, so getting caught up with a make-ahead meal seemed like a good idea.

I dropped the bone in a pot, filled it with chicken broth, threw in a handful of frozen mixed vegetables, and put the fire on medium high.

Soon the aroma of ham and pea soup was filling the air, so I decided to check my email on the computer in the back room. And then I jumped on Facebook to see what was happening.

Someone posted a song by Frank Sinatra, and I found myself listening to some of his other tunes as well as some other holiday favorites.

I was quite relaxed.

Until I smelled something burning.

I jumped up, ran to the kitchen and saw smoke. The liquid had boiled out of the pot, and all that was left was a charred ham bone and a pot spewing out thick smoke.

Immediately, I turned off the fire and then spent the next half hour turning on fans and opening windows. I counted myself extremely lucky there hadn't been a fire and no damage had been caused.

Thirty minutes later, the smoke was gone from the house, but the burnt smell remained. And here's where I came to a fork in the road.

It's one thing to do something incredibly stupid when I'm alone. That act of stupidity jumps to a whole new level when I have to tell someone else – my husband who would never leave something cooking on the stove unattended – what I did.

Guess which option I chose.

I had 24 hours.

I stopped at the store the next day, bought two cans of Febreeze and sprayed every single room in the house.

Next I opened all the windows and turned on all the fans. I had to sit in the living room with a jacket and a blanket, but after three hours, the smell seemed to be gone.

I breathed a sigh of relief, thinking I'd covered up the fiasco. Until I went to set the house alarm. While opening the windows, I'd accidentally broken one of the alarm seals.

Still trying to escape admitting my stupidity, I sent my husband an email, nonchalantly mentioning I might have broken one of the alarm seals while airing out the house. I conveniently left out why I was airing out the house, but I rationalized that was a minor detail.

The next day, my husband returned, fixed the alarm and didn't say anything about any smoke smell. I thought I'd gotten away with it and then the guilt hit.

Sighing, I told him the real reason I was airing out the house. He said he'd smelled the smoke right away and was just waiting for me to give him the whole story.

I've learned my lesson – never walk away from anything cooking on the stove and every month, test all our smoke alarms the easy way – press the button on the front.

And, just in case things do go wrong, belly up to the bar early on. Eventually, those chickens, or in this case a ham bone, come home to roost.
 
This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.

A Southern Christmas

It's the first day of December, and many of us are finally finishing off the last of the Thanksgiving leftovers and turning our thoughts, and wallets, toward Christmas.

On the radio, crooners Perry Como and Nat King Cole gush over snow-covered sidewalks and shoppers bundling up in coats, scarves and boots.

For way too long, northern states have crafted what Christmas is supposed to look like, totally ignoring the South that, frankly, has it pretty good during the winter months.

First there's the weather. Here in the South, when it snows every 10 years or so, it's a delightful treat, not a mountain to battle our way through every morning.

Santa might visit other parts of the world in a sleigh, but he'd probably find it a lot safer using water skis to land on a snow-free Southern roof.

And that woolen suit? Forget it. A southern Santa would be better off trading those scratchy duds in for cotton khakis and a "Gulf Shores" T-shirt.

Then there's those time-honored traditions mentioned in song and verse. Most Southerners have no idea what it means to roast chestnuts on an open fire or sip flaming rum punch.

We do, however, understand the satisfaction of gathering pecans in our back yards and making a home-made pie from the bounty while sipping on a glass of Luzianne iced tea.

Jack Frost doesn't nip at our noses. It'll be a cold day in July when any Southerner with an ounce of gumption allows an elf to bite at his or her nose.

Here in the southern states, we're more likely to run the air conditioner than the heater during the winter, and many of us have no idea what it means to have coal delivered to the cellar or how to make angels in the snow.

We don't understand wearing three layers of clothing, a coat, scarf and snow boots just to go outside nor would we ever believe getting up an hour early to shovel snow off the sidewalks is acceptable.

We scratch our heads at people who think 20 degrees below zero is tolerable and think it's odd for people to put chains on their tires – chains are meant to tote logs, not drive on.

But when it comes to the winter holidays, there are a lot of things Southerners intuitively get.

We understand boxing gloves, not snow mittens, Dickey overalls instead of snow bibs and splashing through bayous and marshes in a four-wheeler, not a horse-drawn carriage.

When we go out to cut down a Christmas tree, we ride on the back of a flat-bed tractor, not a sleigh, and we're okay with that mode of transportation.

We appreciate the thrill of receiving roller skates or a bike on Christmas morning and then going outside and playing to our heart's content – in shorts.

Southerners don't dash through the snow nor do we stop for a visit with Frosty the snowman.

Instead, there's plenty of fresh mud on the flaps of our Ford F-150 trucks and we've got Mike the Tiger, the Georgia bulldogs and Bevo instead of a fickle snowman that'll melt at the first warm snap.

Just like our Northern brothers and sisters, we understand the true meaning of the holidays – family, fellowship and faith. In these parts, we simply celebrate the holidays Southern style.

And, honey, that's just fine with me.

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.