Out with the pumpkin spice. Bring on the Christmas tamales!

I like Christmas music and lights; they cannot begin too early for me.
The music is a change from what I usually listen to.
The lights help keep the dark at bay and encourage the Sun to stop rising later and setting sooner.

Several of the Sirius XM Holiday Music channels supposedly went on-air this morning. Haven't checked yet (usually I listen in the car), but yesterday I tuned the radio to Channel 71 which was to switch to Holiday Traditions. It's okay to think Christmas when Bing Crosby is belting out "White Christmas", isn't it?

ETA: (yep, they have 20 channels going if I did the count correctly).

quote:

Originally posted by oddball:
In our household, Christmas anything starts the weekend after Thanksgiving.

Same here.
My boss & coworker [or their wives] almost compete for who can get their Christmas stuff up first.

quote:

Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:
Out with the pumpkin spice. Bring on the Christmas tamales!

This I am 100% on board with

The Christmas tamales look outstanding!

I live in Arizona and it’s hard to find a decent tamale. I hate it when the masa/meat ratio isn’t right. It’s not supposed to be the size of a burrito with a pencil think ribbon of meat.

I’d happily pay more to have a tamale with a decent amount of meat. All I seem to find are masa logs.

We have a great tamale shop here in N Houston. Sadly they stopped selling direct & are only available in 6 grocery stores & can take a few stops to find some.

Swedish meatballs and Lefse

Several years ago a member sent me some Lefse because of a thread like this, I believe he lived in MN. That was right about the time of my messy divorce, I don't remember if I thanked him. Thank you Sir, it meant a lot. I see it's on Amazon, I will buy some this year

Christmas starts with Hallmark movies.

The Christmas music started at work on Saturday. I’m ready to gouge out my eardrums already.

I’m ready for winter brew ales, some good sipping whiskey, and Christmas baked goodies.

I am very certain that my wife will be having me subscribe to hallmark for the next couple months.

Christmas music is played at my house all year long, but not *that* much. Saturday morning it started here in full force. The joy it brings my wife makes it well worth listening to.

quote:

Originally posted by Leemur:

The Christmas music started at work on Saturday. I’m ready to gouge out my eardrums already.

My hearing aids have a "mute" button.

Due to kids travel we are getting the tree up for Thanksgiving when they will visit for a few days.

We used to shop on Friday for the tree together. I miss them so much.

It has only been my wife and I. We’ve never had children. I don’t see the point of putting up a Christmas tree then taking it down again. My wife does get into decorating for each season but that’s her thing. On the other hand, we know two couples, one couple decorates every room in the house with Christmas trees and themes and has an open house. The other couple puts up railroad tracks and trains.

Since we became empty nesters about 18 years ago, tradition is out the window unless kids come to town. For Christmas music, it's usually TSO, or grunge rock. Dinner is always open for exploration.

Needs more bourbon.

We always put the tree up the day/weekend after Thanksgiving as a kid and I’ve carried on with that. When people start too early, it waters down the season and by the end, a lot of those same people are saying they are ready to get it over with.

I always watch Christmas Vacation right after Thanksgiving to kick off my season. My mom starts making Chex party mix and sausage balls and things like that. Sometimes I go hunting on Black Friday just to avoid the crowds and noise which is always very enjoyable. Driving by the big galleria mall at 4am as I head to the woods and seeing 1000s of cars waiting for the stores to open always makes me shake my head and grateful that I’m not in that mess. Since my dad passed in 2023, the holidays are always a little sad but I’m thankful for my mom, brothers and my kids and I always try to remember the real reason for the season.

While we’ve not done any interior decorating yet for Christmas, the landscaping outfit that does extra work in our area putting up exterior Christmas lighting has to get an early start to meet the demand - they had our lights up in mid-October haha…

That said, I’ve kept them turned off until last weekend.

The grandkids will be with us next weekend to tackle the interior stuff.

I’ve been working on the front yard every afternoon this week. Should have it all finished by the end of the weekend.

quote:

Originally posted by Beancooker:
I’m 100% down to rename the thread to “The official Christmas 2025 Thread”. That’s actually a splendid idea, Ryan.


Solely because you posted joy, and a recipe, I will be baking these cookies in the very, very near future. The candied balls most likely won’t make the cut, it’s a texture thing. I will circle back to add some photos when I do. Seems that I’ll have some extra time off work this week, so I’ll make an effort to bake these. Thanks again, because I feel these will be quite tasty.

I love this! And honestly, my mother always made two batches. One with sprinkles and one without, because I always preferred them without sprinkles. She never used the candy balls like in the photo either. That photo was just the best one we could find when making these postcards to send out. The ones I attempted to take of the actual cookies didn't look good enough for print.

Same thing with the frosting. It is a thick buttercream type frosting, not the glazed.