Here’s how it rolled:

Thursday, December 24th, we drove to Fort Smith to meet my family at Rolando’s for lunch.  We had a great time, good food, and my sisters and mom opened the photo albums that I made for them.  Using shutterfly.com, I put together some really nice hardbound 8.5"x11" books filled with photos from my grandmother’s photo albums.  These photos dated back to the early 1900’s until the mid 1990’s.

Later that night, it snowed a few inches!

On Christmas morning, Jill & I exchanged presents.  I received a JVC Blu-Ray player, a new wool Kangol cap, "Look at the Birdie" by Kurt Vonnegut, 3 new colorful handkerchiefs that she found in Brooklyn, and some other good things.  I gave her some Italian leather gloves, some L‘Occitane lotion from Sephora, a LightWedge reading lamp, and some other goodies.

The roads looked slick, and there was snow everywhere.  We waited until around noon, when the sun was out, and some of the ice was melting, and tried to drive to Bella Vista for Christmas dinner with Jill’s mother and aunt.

We couldn’t even get out of the neighborhood.  The two main outlets (Hammond and Rockwood) were both coated in ice and it was very apparent that the city of Fayetteville didn’t sand or salt the roads.  The only vehicles moving were SUVs.  So we had to work our way back home, for the day.   No Christmas feast for us.  I ended up making some butternut squash soup, and Jill made a pumpkin pie.  We hadn’t bought any groceries, and happened to have ingredients for both at home.

A bottle of processo was cooled in the snow that afternoon.

FINALLY this morning we saw a city truck flying down the road, presumably sanding/salting the road.  No such luck.  There was none, but that vehicle did drive down the street.  We packed the car again for the drive to Bella Vista for Christmas dinner, a day late, and hoped for the best.

The salt on the road was spotty, but we were able to get down Rockwood Trail, and made our way to Bella Vista.

We opened presents and I got "Generation A" by Douglas Coupland, The Lee Bros. Southern Cookbook, some wonderful M. Rohr’s coffee (GREAT coffee roasted in NYC), a DCI I Am Not a Paper Cup 10-Ounce Porcelain Travel Cup, an Umbra coffee sleeve, new wallet, and other goodies!

Hoover and Audrey also had a good Christmas.  They got toys and cookies from Big Wag Bakery, a talking Mr. Bill toy, and other treats and toys.   The kitties received treats and toys in their stockings as well!

Additionally, we ate turkey, homemade bread, cranberries, salad, roasted root vegetables, and blueberry pie.

On the way home, we stopped at Best Buy where I purchased three blu-ray movies (thanks to mom’s gift card): District 9, Inglourious Basterds, and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

I purchased a pound each of:

• Yemen Mocca Matari: Very sharp, smokey aroma.  Medium-bodied cup with very smokey flavor and pronounced tanginess.  French Roast.

• Zimbabwe: Pungent, smokey aroma.  Full-bodied and richly acid.  French Roast.

• Java Kayumas Estate: Deep, sweet aroma.  Heavy body with delicate acidity.  Very distinctive flavor.  Full City Roast.

The prices were very reasonable and they have online ordering!

This is the view out of one artist’s window:

That would really suck to have to see that every day.

The biggest drawback of the hotel was it’s location.   To get into Washington D.C., there was a 20 minute bus ride to get to a metro station on the outskirts of the metropolitan area.  Or a water taxi to get to Alexandria.  Or a $16 cab ride (one way) to get to Alexandria. 

The convention facilities were nice.  The hotel service was really good (we had several requests, and they were fulfilled).  At the National Harbor Resort, the restaurants were really expensive, especially for the quality of food.