Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays 2024 Edition

 How are you all doing, now that the Big Holiday is behind us?  Anyone else feeling like Christmas (and any other holiday you want to throw in here) is a BIT too commercialized?  Too  scripted?  Too many expectations?  Honestly, we have scaled back a lot on what we do or don't do, what we buy, where we go, who we interact with.  It's a relief, honestly. Sure, there are a few things I wish we had more time to do this year, but overall, nah!

 We *used* to send out about 100 Christmas cards.  We meant *me*, on behalf of the whole family.  I diligently kept up with all the snail mail addresses and contacts of all of our family and friends.  I had it all in the Outlook program, where I could put each person in a category, like "Christmas Cards 2009" and then extract all of them to a database file, to then print all the fancy labels, or to print fancy To and From names and addresses onto the envelopes directly.  It was actually a lot of fun, that part! But then to write in each card, as we/I wanted to do.  That part took a long time.  Sometimes it meant that the cards were late.  Or, then not at all.  Until one year, we/I just stopped buying and sending cards, or making custom cards, even.  It was not without a big twinge of guilt the first few years.  But now, we only get literally a handful of cards, and we talk to those friends and relatives all the time :)

So...No More Christmas Cards! Check!  A tradition from my childhood, but watch us breaking tradition, ha ha!

One of our newest traditions, well, "new" but also over 20 years old in many aspects.

 

Santa Claus!  My husband is the best Santa Claus, hands down!  

He started before he ever knew he was Santa! 

Kids have been attracted to Mike from way back! I know it was his Santa-looking face, even back when he was still in his 20's when we first met! I got him his first Santa Suit in 1998, and he's been Santa ever since! 

He  has learned the tricks of the trade, and I have honestly never met a better Santa! Kids love him, adults love him, pets love him!

We do lots of community engagements, and events, where Pics with Santa is much anticipated!

This year, Mike did Santa meetups with the Residents from The Arc in two of our counties. 

He met the SAIL students at I-Hop in California, MD, when they were having a Holiday Lunch, as a surprise guest!

Mike joined in at On Our Own of Calvert for the 3rd year in a row! 

He also does arranged gigs, such as for company parties, for private homes, etc.

We do a couple of community Pics with Santa events, with our photo booth setup, for instant prints.  SOF Market in Leonardtown was on Sunday, December 15th, where he gave out hundreds of candy canes and listened to many requests for Santa! The SOF Market gave out lots of hot apple cider and an assortment of yummy cookies!

 

Then we went to The Dixon Family Farm in Mechanicsville, Maryland, on Saturday, December 21st.  Let me tell you...whoa! It was COLD, as in Freezing COLD, and WINDY!  It was so freaking windy, that our space in the barn was a challenge to setup our space for Santa, and we were unable to setup our photo booth.  The wind tried to knock over all of our setup, and it made our "final setup" look quite like we had not freaking idea what we were doing!  We do of course, but this was a challenge between us and the Weather.  The Weather...WON!  But, we still took pictures on our cell phones, over 400 of them, to be exact, and finally got them loaded up into their gallery for the visitors.

Now, this year, we had a few teenager Elf Helpers, who we 100% appreciate! We Love our helpers!

 

This year we also had a FOUR-HUNDRED (4! lol!) Elf Athena!  She has been preparing for a long time to go work with her favorite Santa, Santa Mike, who she knows well.  She picked out her Elf design of an outfit, then even assisted in helping put it together!  Yes, it was COLD, we figured she would last about 30 minutes.  Girly lasted over 3 hours, playing, running around, helping comfort other children who were not too sure about Santa.  She made a crying lil girl stop crying!  She helped comfort a few kids who just were not sure about going to see Santa.  She was perfect!  

We had a baby goat in our booth in 2023.

He was back this year...but a LITTLE bigger!

  

Wnen we finished up at The Dixon Family Farm we went out to dinner in our Claus gear, and it was fun, as usual!  We took a lot of pics with restaurant guests, with folks walking thru the parking lot on our way inside, folks in the parking lot, on our way back to the car, lol! This year, one couple stopped to get pics on their way out and chatted awhile.  They said thank you for our community contributions, which we are very happy to give.  Then, we found out after they left, that they had picked up our tab!  Sweet!  And, thank you! 

THIS...THIS is what I love about the holidays, all of the above, plus!

Making cookies with my cookie crew!

Making holiday decorations with my lil Elf gal and her family!

Exchanging gifts with my guys, and with my 2nd Family here!

Playing Mrs. Claus to my personal and most awesome Santa Claus!

Being with my family!

Putting out luminarias in our driveway and down the street!

 

Attending a few holiday parties, when they work out!

Putting up a tree, when it happens.  It did not happen this year, but we are okay with that. 

Putting out lights outside, when it works!

Sure, some of the other traditions are awesome and when they work out, great.

BUT...Keeping things LOW STRESS and FUN are the main goals! 

Merry Christmas!  Happy Hanukkah! Happy Kwanza!

Happy Birthday to my hubby, Santa Claus! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Green Chile Chicken Enchiladas

Green Chile Chicken Enchiladas

Hi to all!  This is how I make my green chile chicken enchiladas.  The recipe here assumes you know about green chiles, and you know how to make casseroles and perhaps even dishes like lasagna.  If not, you can search for a similar recipe online that shows you more details.  But, here is my method!

1. I like using our electric pressure cooker to pre-cook the chicken, it takes about 35 min from start to finish, and it makes the chicken shreddable.  Put all of the next ingredients into the pressure cooker and then let it cool bit when it's all done.

** 3 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts
** large onion, sectioned
** cloves of garlic
** 3-4 pieces of cellery, cut into sections
** spices you like, I use pepper, salt, garden herb mixture, but anything you like on your chicken
** water in the pressure cooker, for 3 breasts I use 2-3 cups of water

2. Once the chicken is all cooked up, then use a fork or other utensil and shred the chicken and mash or shred the onions, celery and garlic into the chicken.  Add sour cream to the mixture and combine.

** add in 1 or 1 1/2 cups of sour cream

3. Put about a cup of the sauce from the cooked chicken into the bottom of the large baking dish or pan.  Layer the following ingredients, just as you would do with a lasagne.  In this dish, I used a whole pkg of corn tortillas, making 6 layers, ending with cheese on the top.

** pkg of corn tortillas (about 36 in a pkg)
** the chicken mixture from above
** Hatch green chiles, chopped (spread as thickly or sparsely as you think you would want your dish to be hot or mild)
** shredded mixture of cheese, I like the Mexican cheese combo

4. Once done layering, and ending with cheese, bake in an oven that is 350 deg F. for about 30 min, or until the cheese is melted and starting to brown on the top.

5. Serve with what you like best, we prefer:

** shredded iceburg lettuce
** chopped tomatoes
** chopped cilantro
** sour cream

YUM!

Note:  Some recipes call for you to cook the corn tortillas in oil before layering them into the enchiladas.  We have both fried them up, as well as used them "as is" from the package.  They are good either way.

All About the Tie Dye -- The Things You Need To Know

Hello, fellow tie dyer!  If you are looking for how to do your craft, well here you go!  This tutorial and info base is meant for newbies, as well as anyone who is seasoned...good luck to you!

Multi-Hearts, for the advanced tie dyer, and one of my favorites!

About us:

We learned to do tie dye out of a desire to...learn how to do tie dye.  It was on my list, but when I tried it and then convinced Mike to join in...we kept getting it "wrong".  We did it with our own family, and extended family.  Once we "got it right", the kids proudly wore their creations everywhere.  From that, folks started asking them where they got their shirts from, and all signs pointed back to us.  In turn, we started getting asked, can you show us, can you help us do a class, will you come do it in my classroom, etc.  Since 2009, we have dyed or helped others dye over 5,000 shirts or other items.

The Southern Maryland King && Queen of Tie Dye:

Yes, we claim these titles, and it's just for fun!  Yes, we know the awesome Ron Lord, as well as some other locals who are very good at tie dye!  We love and respect their work, and our well-earned titles are no reflection on them, or meant as any slight, in any way!

The Southern Maryland Queen & King of Tie Dye -- and Photo Booths!

For our main business, we now run a premier, social photo booth company, Southern Maryland Entertainment -- Photo Booth Rentals.

We are proud of the high standard photo booth business we have created and we would love to see you there sometime!  For anyone wondering, there are many flavors of photo booths that you may see in your lifetime.  We are the Cadillac version of the photo booth, and worth every penny and second!  Come check us out, see for yourselves!

We chose "Entertainment" so we could put other things we like to do, such as Tie Dye, Sea Glass Art, Parties, and more, under our Entertainment Umbrella.  But, back to Tie Dye!

The Supplies - The Dyes:

Keep it simple, buy the BEST DYES!
Go to Dharma Trading.com and from this link choose the types of dyes you want. For most tie dyeing, you will go to the link for Dyes for Tie-Dyeing, and then get busy trying to narrow down your choices!  It is a problem, to try to only pick a few.

Yes, we originally did the typical and bought the kits from the local stores, such as JoAnn's, Michael's, WalMart.  Don't event bother, those kits are CRAP!  The dyes are not good, they do not produce as much as the packages indicate, and the colors fade or wash out!  Trust us on this one, and don't even waste your time on the store kits.  You will NOT like your results if you do buy the kits!  THAT we can promise you.

This is what you need to start with, if you want to keep your costs low, but want to get busy dyeing:

Go with the basic, primary colors.  In tie dyeing, it will be:
1. #13 -- Fuschia Red (which is a hot pink)
2. #1 -- Lemon Yellow
3. #25 -- Turquoise

You can mix these colors and get the secondary colors, and even your tertiary colors, and then some!  We used to do this, but found that we couldn't shake the bottles of dye hard enough to prevent a blue edging on the shirts from the mixed color for purple, or the red tinge for the color orange, and so on.  Now we buy each color to use "as is" and then mix colors for fun if we want different shades or tones, etc.  For example, it is fun to lighten some of the blue colors, if you want an end result of 4 blues on a shirt but only have 2 colors of dye.

The Process of Getting Started -- All the Supplies

Here is a list of what we use, of what we found to work best, to do all of the tie dye that we like to do.  We like to do tie dye with groups, so this list reflects that setup.  You may find you work better with a different setup.  See pictures below for more info on some of the items.

• Dharma Fiber Reactive Procion Dyes
• Dust Masks -- when mixing dyes, ALWAYS use a dust mask, and do it in a well-ventilated area!!!
• Measuring spoons or cups.  We use tsp and 1/8 and 1/4 and 1 cup sizes the most.
• "Just Orange" (or other flavors) juice bottles, or other sized bottles that work for you.  We mix a half gallon of almost each color of dye each time we do tye dye, and two of the more commonly used colors, such as yellow and turquoise.
• Hair dressing bottles for applying the dyes to your shirts (we will use "shirts" from here forward, but meaning ANY item you want to tie dye)
• Plumbers tape, to wrap around the threads of the hair dressing bottles 
• #16 and #19 rubber bands, but you can use any size, these work best
• Cotton string, for tying (we only use a little, mostly use rubber bands)
• Packing paper, to wrap your shirts in once they are colored
• Recycled grocery bags, to haul your paper-wrapped shirts home
• If doing shirts at home, we use a piece of chicken wire on top of a scrap piece of wood on the ends, put the shirts on top of that, and cover with a tarp or cut up contractor sized plastic bags -- saves on the paper for wrapping
• Plastic wrap, for those intricate designs that need the extra support
• WASHABLE magic markers -- for making designs
• Disposable gloves!  pick your sizes, you will need a lot
• Kitchen gloves -- if you are doing the tie dyeing by yourself, I prefer to get sturdier gloves and re-wash them until they fall apart on me
• Dedicated long sleeve kitchen gloves, for squeezing out the shirts from the pre-soaking
• pHup -- technically, it is Sodium Carbonate, you can get this from the pool section in Walmart or elsewhere, when it is in season.  Go to a jacuzzi store if you are out of season.
• Urea -- fertilizer you can get from Dharma Trading, or you can find at a local Southern States type store.  Be prepared to give them your ID and explain why you are buying it.  We get a large bag and it lasts us a long time, well over a year.  If you only do a little, then buy from Dharma
• 5 gallon bucket to mix water and the PhUp powder
• Long whisk or a plastic spoon, for mixing the PhUp powder in the bucket of warm water
• Dish pan(s)
• Racks to put your shirt on, over the dish pan.  2 racks per dishpan
• Larger bin that fits the racks in, for washing between shirts, in soapy water
• Plastic or glass top table to do your tying on -- don't use wood for tying! -- this is the COLOR FREE ZONE TABLE!
• Plastic table to do your coloring on
• Chairs to use while folding shirts
• Cooler to store leftover mixed dyes in -- they last up to 2 weeks if kept cool
• Or a refrigerator with no food in it, for the leftover mixed dyes.
• Permanent marker, to label bags with names, if there is more than one of you.  The bags all look the same in the end.
• HAND LOTION -- we prefer Cetafil.  The pHup will dry out your hands, the lotion keeps them happier. We use it the entire time we are tying shirts.
• Detergent to wash your shirt when it is ready.  We recommend using Synthrapol detergent, available from Dharma, but regular detergent will also work. Synthrapol is an industrial grade, and best to use if you are doing a lot of tie dye, and is what we use.
• Music to play while working/playing
• Bug spray, if you are working outside 
• Tarp, if you are brave enough to work inside of your your house, or in a garage, etc.
• Paper towels, or an old towel, for cleanup purposes
• Large trash bag for keeping your area clean.

Urea is used in tie dyeing and other forms of direct application of dyes. ... Urea has two purposes: it can make it possible to dissolve more dye in a given volume, for the strongest of colors, and it serves as a humectant, or water-attractor, to help keep fabric damp long enough for the reaction to occur.  (www.pburch.net/dyeing/FAQ/urea.shtml)

How to wash out the dye in tie dye:

• after letting the shirts sit in bags overnight (at least 70 degrees or higher) (pref closer to 24 hrs, at this temperature), they can be washed out 

•  if you have a top loading machine, you can pre-fill the washing machine full and just drop in the t-shirt (out of the bag, of course, AND after removing the rubber bands or strings) and run through a regular or light cycle, OR you can do the following: (Note:  you can wash up to 10 shirts at one time, but if you do this, you should also wash them out before putting in the washing machine):

• wear protective gloves (or, if you don't have gloves, improvise with plastic wrap or a small grocery bag, anything to protect your hands from the color)

• can wash in the kitchen sink, just try not to splash the dye

• can also wash outside with a garden hose and bucket, and let the dye water wash away, it won't hurt the grass or driveway

• take out of the bag, run under water that is initially cold to cool, until it runs clearer; it will be VERY dark at first, even if there are lighter colors in the shirt

• take out of the rubber bands or strings.   

• keep under running water and squeezing, or you can use a bucket and try dipping and squeezing, with the water running in the bucket the while time, you can also add a couple drops of dish or laundry detergent to the water towards the end, to help with the rinsing

• once it runs clearer, put aside where it won't touch any other dyed shirts (lay out on the grass). Do not hang up to drip dry, the colors are still active and will run downwards.

• if you have a top loader, pre-fill washer with warm water -- run through light wash and rinse cycle

• immediately after washing, dry in a hot dryer – the dryer heat is REQUIRED to finish the dying process

The next wash "might" bleed a little bit, but won't bleed after that.  (UV rays will fade the colors over time).

THIS IS NOT COMPLETE YET, working on it!  Come back soon for all the goodness of tie dyeing!