Real Texas Christmas tradition
We talked some about Texas traditions here last week. Someone reminded me I didn’t show anything about making Christmas tamales this year. Well, shame on me, I did write something, just got busy and forgot to put it up. Here it is:
Every family has their own Christmas traditions and here at Sherwood Ranch, we are no different. One of our Christmas traditions is not anything unusual out here in Real Texas. We make several dozens of tamales every year about this time. We give some to family and friends, we save some 
to eat throughout the year, and we have a meal or two ourselves during the holidays.
This year, our friends Sam and Sheila Douglas and Richard Boggs came to help us out. Ramona had already prepared the meat and this year she really added the ‘hot’ to it by using the extra hot chili peppers she gets at the store. Next year, we’re going back to merely hot-tamales.
My experience with tamales goes back to childhood, but we never made our own. We would buy them from the Catholic church ladies, the Apostolic church ladies, or just from ladies who would make them to earn extra money. They cost anywhere from $6 to $10 a dozen.
Our tamales cost anywhere from $10 to $15 a dozen depending on if I get my beer, a must-have ingredient, on sale at the store. Just kidding-sort of. That’s an expense the church ladies don’t seem to have.
One Christmas season, it took son Joe David Werst and I so long to make the tamales that I barely remembered making them the next day. Of course that was back when we were using a spoon to spread the masa on the corn husk. Nowadays, Ramona uses a super-duper masa spreader and it significantly cuts down the amount of time it takes to spread the masa and the entire process of making the tamales. It also cuts down on the beer bill.
This year after we finished making tamales we went down the creek a few miles to Sam and Sheila’s place on the Spring Creek and sat out in a cold mist near a campfire-pit he had built. We were joined on that cold evening by Pam and T. Gozney Thornton. We all made smores by roasting our marshmallows over the fire and enjoyed some good visiting and Christmas cheer.
Those are the sort of activities that make for the best Christmas memories.
Good times with friends and family out in Real Texas, wherever you find it, is hard to beat.
Here is a video of making Christmas tamales this year with a link to the recipes if you want to try it for yourself.
Merry Christmas…even if it is way after the fact.
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Love this site- always great! Here in Spokane ,Wa. we can buy Tamales- yet cost us 20-24.00 a doz- just redicilious. I make my own about 2-3 times a year here. freeze them 7 have some all year. Ive just made 2 batches of chicken tamales . one standard type & another with a can of chipolte peppers added with all else while cooking the chicken. Talk about color!! WoW!! Lovely & taste is great & hot/spicy. Theyre great!!
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