Christmas is a time to give and my family has always thought me to be thankful for all we have and what we don’t have and to give to those less fortunate and in need. We have always been involved in serving our community in any way possible to our capacity and with a willing heart. The satisfaction of putting a smile to achild or a family it´s just amazing and I want to share some ideas with you for this year´s Christmas season.  As a way of showing how thankful we are for having more than what we really deserve and as a way of sharing those blessings with others every year my family and I clean our closets of cloth and shoes in good conditions and take them to the girl´s orphanage or to a shelter. We also collect blankets and drive around the streets and give them to the homeless. Last year some friends and I also went to a nursing home and sang Christmas carols to the elderly and even do we did not had a great voice we had a great time and actually made new friends. Christmas is all about planning, gathering, spending time with the family and friends and receiving presents but there´s no better present than to be able to
make someone´s Christmas.  

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Our family faces the dilemma to not being able to face our holidays in our normal holiday retreat and also have to worry about the fact that there is a lot of things that my family cooks that have Mexican ingredients as many families in Mexico face the same dilemma. Many of our foods are not traditional American family foods. We enjoy the eating of tamales, menudo, posole, cabrito, bacalao and of course we like aguacate in our food but that is not the end of the world. Even though these foods will not taste the same or be the same like these use too, we are going to have to put our effort to the max in order for our family to feel the most at home as they came. 

This holidays we will try to adapt to the new traditions without letting that be an obstacle for having a great time with family and friends. The person we are trying to mostly feel at home is my grandmother because she cannot believe that we are not going to have our traditional family party. In fact we had to really beg her and tell her that she would be able to gut the goat and cook it outside if she please just let agree to doing the get together in the US soil home. This year will be extremely special because we must start a new tradition because we do not know how long this bad spell is going to continue. Even though we are going to have to change and be content with certain replacement of things we are still going to be extremely grateful that our family is together and happy. All multicultural people that celebrates their family holidays in parts of Mexico should be open to the idea of applying new traditions to their celebration in order to rekindle the joy. I am pretty sure it affects them as it affects me and my family not being able to celebrate our holidays the way we are used to, but if you see the positive outcome of this we can all have a mixture of new traditions and the family together.

This year our holiday has become a very hectic one, due to the fact that our usual home where all of our family gets is in a town that is under the invasion of Mexican Cartel Wars. Since there is a major drug war going on our home town Reynosa Tamaulipas we have not been able to celebrate past  years over there in our family ranch which has been around for generation after generation. My grandmother, which is used to always spending the holidays over there has become extremely worried and uneasy because she cannot believe that she will not be able to spend the family time over there. This has complicated many of my family’s plans because we have to decide where we have our family dinner and get together. Once we decide where these events will be held, then we must give out certain duties to the family’s members in order to make our new place of celebration look or at least remind us of the old one. My grandmother of course is devastated because this is a tradition that had been going on for several years now. We will have to try to and make this time feel like the past times in our usual Christmas parties in Reynosa Mexico. We have to set up the best in order to make up for location and of course make sure it is full of many wonderful gifts for all of the family members. In addition, to make the Christmas tree extra special we must also put our Christmas lights on overdose to make it look extra jolly. Another thing we have to worry about is looking a new Djs because when we would have our family parties we would have a group that would go play at the ranch and they would stay till past midnight. One of the dilemmas that come with finding a new Djs is also knowing that they will meet our likes of music genres; mind you we must also pay attention to the time laws that the united states has. We do not want any police officers knocking at our door telling us that the music is to loud.  We must all have a time when we all sit together and lay baby Jesus in the barn bassinet, also take the time to thank God for letting us be all together another year and of course be safe and free from all the bad going on with the drug wars currently happening in our home town. I hope that it will be great holiday whatever the matter; I know that as long as my family is together it will be a great holiday.

Paula Deen has been part of the Food Network family for a decade and is known for her traditional Southern cooking. Her television show began back in 2002 and is still existent.  It has become one of the best shows on television and one of my mom’s favorite cooking TV shows, Paula’s Home Cooking. Another famous food show and one of her most recent endeavors is Paula’s Best Dishes, which debuted in 2008 and has been a success. She has also written numerous cookbooks for audiences of all age groups.  One of her latest works is a  children’s cookbook titled: Lunch Box Set and her monthly published magazine Cooking with Paula Deen. 

Not everything has been a total success for Paula Deen. In addition to suffering with agoraphobia (panic attacks)at a very young age, she also had to deal with her husband leaving her and her two children. She also had to cope with the death of her parents before she was 23. Deen had to work hard in order to accomplish all her goals not only for herself but for her children. Having her children as motivation has led her to accomplish what she has today. Dedication and responsibility have been major factors that attribute to her success.

Paula Deen has expanded her horizons and created a webpage www.pauladeen.com in which she thoroughly elaborates her recipes for stay at home moms, school teachers, aspiring chefs, catering companies and many other audiences. It's a very accessible and easy to manage webpage. It's user friendly and is constantly updated with the changing holiday seasons to give readers new ideas. At the same time, it provides recipes and tips to bring to the kitchen. Deen’s shows are very educational.  They give insight on her cooking techniques and what ingredients to use.  These shows do not only target chefs and housewives as expected but also single men who live on their own. She is very thorough in explaining her recipes that even men can put it into practice. Deen has a section called “Kitchen Basics” where you can find all sorts of things like canning 101, how to set a table, and tips to make cooking an easy and enjoyable experience. One of my favorite sections is Dinner in 30 minutes which has quick and easy-to-make lists of recipes when you are short on time. She is very dedicated and is always providing new and creative recipes for upcoming holidays. Paula Deen not only makes gourmet food but also makes healthy and tasty menus for children. Your next meal is just a click away.  

As I was skimming through her website, I came across a section by the Deen Bros (Paula’s sons) which encourages healthy eating by cutting the fat and calories from Deen’s original recipes without taking away the flavor. Most people would think that these types of recipes are bland, given the fact that they use healthier ingredients that are reduced in fat and sometimes flavorless. I actually decided to take the challenge and cooked one of their renewed recipes. I cooked the Lighter Chicken Fried Steak for my family without telling them it was a reduced fat recipe. They substituted some ingredients and replaced them with things such as egg whites, fat-free milk and reduced-sodium chicken broth, with which were able to cut off 264 calories and 31g of fat from the original recipe. The recipe was a total success and my family did not even notice they were eating a healthier meal and since then, my mom and I try to look for healthier recipes to cook for the family.  

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