A few weeks ago we decorated the house by putting iconic Colonial Williamsburg electric candles in each of the windows.
Now that we accomplished 20 inches of snow for our first Christmas in Virginia, we needed to add a taste of Texas!
Making homemade tamales
That means tamales, a San Antonio tradition for Christmas Eve.
Except we haven’t found any good tamales in Northern Virginia.
The lack of Tex-Mex helped me lose 20 pounds last spring!
All I do is nibble in Virginia restaurants.
That means I need to find good recipes, because in Texas I just enjoyed the great local food at the restaurants who cook it so well.
I’m trying to remember some recipes the restaurant staff gave me at one of the Tex-Mex restaurants I worked at during college. Hmm…
Since those restaurants aren’t here, I need to find the Tex-Mex recipes.
In between my sledding runs, I made my first homemade tamales.
I used a Paula Dean recipe for chicken tamales (that I amended) in her magazine that also included her Christmas trip to Colonial Williamsburg. She had tea with Patrick Henry!
Colonial Williamsburg Gingerbread Village
Between their sledding runs the kids have been building a colonial gingerbread village to look like Colonial Williamsburg.
They recreated some of the buildings out of gingerbread crackers, properly adorned Colonial Revival style, with wooden fencing properly surrounding each property.
Like we see in town this time of year are piles of wood for the fireplace, made with unwrapped tootsie rolls.
For a sign a pretzel was used on top of a gingerbread stick.
They let the royal icing dry while they are playing outside.
Then when they come in to warm up, they enjoy hot cocoa while working on more of the village.
Colonial Revival Centerpiece
We also created clove-studded oranges and cinnamon sticks for our Advent Candle centerpiece, which is a craft that is promoted by Colonial Williamsburg for their Christmas Colonial Revival.
They smell so good and I love all those colors on the table!
Chopped down a Christmas tree
Although I don’t have a picture of it, we also chopped down our own Christmas tree, which made me feel like the Waltons: A Homecoming.
It’s a Wonderful Life
Tonight I’m ready to enjoy advent with the family, tamales and other treats with the family, and watch It’s a Wonderful Life with the fireplace lit.
Wow…what an iconic Christmas!
