The Barton Warnock Visitor Center for the Big Bend State Park put out their annual Christmas Celebration and since we'd liked last years event, we went again!

We arrived early enough to score a seat but by 6.30 the small auditorium was filled to standing room only!



The Terlingua Community Choir and the Roadrunner High School Band led us into singing a whole bunch of Christmas songs after which the little kids from the Terlingua elementary school performed two songs from the immensely popular Disney movie 'Frozen'.




All the girls were dressed as the movie's character Elsa while singing 'Let it go', and all parents were appropriately proud of their little princesses.

The teens of the high school choir, being teens, were almost to shy or embarrassed to sing and were barely audible .... awkward!




But fortunately the only 3 men in the Community Choir made up for them!

There was a quiet moment during the telling of every bodies favorite

story, 't Was the night before Christmas', by the local Librarian ....

Followed by a whirling show of Mexican dances by three High School seniors!

 And off course Santa made an appearance!

 

 

All in all, this is one of those typical small town celebrations; full of unexpected moments, some hilarious, some awkward and some endearing but all brought with such enthusiasm! 
It's just the perfect formula to get you into the 'spirit'!

And afterwards there's hot chocolate, apple cider and loads and loads of cookies!!
I ate waaaayyyy to many!

Other than that it was a quiet week. Time for some 'To-do-list' activities. 
I sewed a few sheer curtains for some of the windows in the RV living area. The curtains are left-overs from when we had our sticks-and- bricks house and have been stored under the bed all this time for this purpose.
I've always thought the windows could use 'something more' so there you have it. The before: 
        



And after:

Maybe that's hard to see, but I think it's much cozier!

In the meantime, James worked on framing and hanging our newly acquired map of North America.

We're talking about our travels a lot, past and future, and are forever digging out maps to figure out where to go and how.

This will give us a much quicker overview. Besides, it looks kind of fun there, especially after I'll put some markers or flags up at the places we've been.

Oh, The Places We'll Go! 

  - “You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go...”  -  (Dr. Seuss)

And because all that hard work always makes us really hungry, I started some Holiday Baking!

These (insanely) sticky dough balls became:

(Insanely delicious) Chocolate Crackles!

And, just for the heck of it, I threw some cranberries and cinnamon in the oatmeal-chocolate-chunk cookies, and some anise and lemon in the sugar cookies.

Decorating is an art. I'm not a decorator ..... I'm more of an ... eater!

And than there's some of us who just can't be bothered.

 

And fall asleep in the tiniest spaces!

Alright, I think I've covered it all, once again. I'll leave you with some pretty clouds. 
Aren't skies something else?

 

Puffed-up Black Phoebe

                 

♪All is calm, all is bright ♫ .....

In style with the season, we're having beautiful, calm winter weather. No wind and temps in the high 60's, low 70's with cool nights. Just perfect!


Great golfing weather too! It's very quiet at the resort at the moment so we're practically the only ones out there!
It's like having your own private course. And such a gorgeous one it is!
I'm usually only playing nine holes and sit the next ones out, just riding along, while James plays a few more. This gives me a great opportunity to watch for wildlife or any other picturesque scenes we come across.




              

Hole # 9 has been claimed by this Snow Goose. He's here already for a couple of weeks and all by his lonesome, poor thing. 
He hangs out in the pond next to the hole and sometimes we find him sleeping smack dab in the middle of the fairway!
This particular snow goose is what they call a 'blue-morph adult', quite different in color from the true-white snow geese that visited the RV Park last year.

              

Since the nights are on the cool side, the snakes are coming out early in the morning to warm up on the sun-warmed concrete of the cart paths.
This one's a Gopher Snake, more specifically, one of the so-called 'Bull- snake race', that are most common here in the desert.

This was a rather big guy!

They can be pretty feisty, coil up and hiss at you (and have big teeth), but this one was very mellow, it didn't even move when we got very close in order to squeeze by!
 
As you can see, the grass is dormant at the moment, the course isn't looking very vibrant anymore:

Which makes this Desert Christmas Cactus, how appropriate, stand out the more right now! 

 

Although flowering in the spring, around December, the plant grows red berries/fruits that when consumed, are said to have an intoxicating effect!

 

Even this little 'weed' is getting into the Christmas spirit, by turning a pretty red caused by the crisp, cool nights we're having.

 

Meanwhile, at the ranch, "♬ it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas ♫"!

If you wonder what the heck James is doing here; he's counting down for our own 'tree-lighting ceremony .....'

Three ...two....one ...

Houston, we have the lights-on!

Inside and out!

Despite Merlin's 'help'!

 

 

Big smile for the camera.

Goofball!

 

There are several marshes around the resort, fed by the Rio Grande, who meanders it's way through these parts of the Chihuahua desert.
I wish it was possible to somehow get inside them since they are teeming with little birds and other critters but the one time I tried I barely made it out with 'only' both shoes and socks covered in mud. Not a good plan!

So, I sit on the edge and wait patiently for whatever pops up or out:


         

Like this little Yellow-rumped warbler (I think). I was a little confused as to which warbler I was looking at but I found out that's because as a species, this warbler is compromised of two former species (now subspecies), the eastern Myrtle Warbler and the Western Audubon's Warbler.
This is a female of the Audubon 'race'. The rather muted colors are her 'Fall colors'. 

And this little sweety. (It must take some practice to avoid those nasty thorns!)

This one really threw me off because I keep forgetting about the juveniles, that can have quite different colors . I think this is a juvenile White-crowned Sparrow. Instead of the much starker black and white facial stripes of the adults these youngsters sport some softer brown toned ones.
(If I'm mistaken you'll let me know, Judy?)

On another note, we already had the yearly, end-of-the-year employee (and their families) appreciation holiday/Christmas dinner.

A Christmas dinner on the 2nd of December? Oh well, it's free food!

I really have to practice more with my camera in night-mode because it should be able to do better than this. 
I'm more of a point and shoot person but this camera needs a litlle more fidgeting with than my previous one ( although less than most) in order to get the best pics.

The food was great, especially the hand-made tamales, the Mexican pork with mole (a thick, dark, brownish-red sauce made with chili pepper and chocolate) and  the killer key-lime pie!

The buffet was served at the High Sierra Bar and Grill in Terlingua which has an upper seating area and outdoor patio where they had a nice fire going. Most of the smokers ended up here!

Traditionally, Santa made his entrance somewhere halfway the evening:

We were happy this years event was between 6 and 9 and was buffet style so we actually had food at 6.30 and could leave whenever we were done. Last year we didn't eat until 8.30, by which time I was practically keeling over from hunger!

                       

While at the subject and since December is all about eating I've made a start by baking speculaas. Just in time for Sinterklaas avond!
Despite the now annual, and rather pathetic, 'Zwarte Piet debate' (for who wants to read into this) in the Netherlands, the tradition still carries on!

Gezellige Sinterklaasavond allemaal!

While searching for the Christmas decorations, I took the opportunity to reorganize some of my knitting and spinning materials that were trying to take over some of the upper cabinets. 
I spread everything out on the table, turned my back for a second, and ......

So very helpful. As in 'not'. Cats .....

It can't be comfortable?