In The Christmas Spirit

Listening to Christmas music from Memphis, from back in the day, Booker T

and the MG's best known Christmas album, In The Christmas Spirit, released in November 1966. A friend sent it along his morning.

The aroma of the still not entirely finished pulled pork pervades. That's because I removed the glass lid to check on the progress at 10 AM.  Before that the cooker kept the smell remarkably enclosed.  We scented nothing all night long, sleeping deep and comfortably.  But once I lifted the lid, that rich complex of aromas wafted out, free to tease and titillate.  I'm impatient to pull it -- I want to see how the substitution of tart cherry juice for cider vinegar turned out -- vinegar, like chocolate and so many other things, are on his "Can't Have" list.

Pouring rain, just as They prophesized.  There are frustrated travelers at the airports and train stations.  Maybe in cars too, because there's flooding around here -- and further west and north, snow storms.

I'm so glad I broke my back doing all I did Monday and Tuesday, because doing some of it in the rain, would been just frackin' miserable and there'd be no holiday spirit going on.

Most of all, it's Christmas Eve AND I AM NOT SICK THIS YEAR!

Hope all of you are safe, warm and dry, bebeeeze ....

It's just getting going in Puerto Rico, where the holidays continue at least through Three Kings Day; here the kids are dancing the traditional bomba, a dance that brings together traditions from both Puerto Rico, Haiti and Cuba,  which is a deep part of Afro-Puerto Rican cultural identity.

ETA:  Right Now!  el V's popping in all these songs from the DR, PR, Cuba and Spain about lechón (roasted suckling pig dish, which is highly valued and beloved throughout the Spanish speaking world)  to play for us via his Spotify account, in honor of our pulled pork!  Which makes me smile very much.