Snow, Luminaires, Decorations, Mama's Cookin'

This is basically a wrap up post of Christmas at my parent's home in Maryland.  After this one (oh and one more to recap Kevin's and my Christmas) we'll be on to the New Year but I wanted to be sure I "documented" this!

Below is my 'across the street neighbor' (back in the day) Laura Leigh and I shoveling snow with our shovels from when we were probably 10 years old.  Too funny!  We obviously did use larger shovels last week and helped our Dad's shovel after the foot of snow!

Do y'all do luminaires in your neighborhoods or have you heard of them?  Basically a brown bag (with tops folded down an inch), sand in the bottom of it and a candle.  You space them about 6-8' apart on the street on Christmas Eve and light them when the sun goes down.

They make the streets and neighborhood look gorgeous, don't they?  In fact, my Mom kinda heads it up in our neighborhood to encourage folks to participate.  We've done it for a long time so making them on Christmas Eve is tradition.

Then we pick up the bags on Christmas Day! 

Isn't my parent's front door pretty all decorated?  Mom always does such a classy decorating job!

This is her Santa collection!  She also has a scene of carolers but I forgot to take a picture of those!

Whenever I go home, Mom always cooks lots of crab dishes since I don't get the good stuff down in Charlotte.  It's become tradition to have crab soup on Christmas Day.  It's a nice meal after too much heavy eating the night before! 

The day before I left, she made crab dip too.  YUM.  She always double the crab meat and makes sure it is jumbo lump.  Delish!

Hope yall are ready for 2011!  Cannot believe it was 68 degrees here in Charlotte today.  Hardly seems like January!