Monday, January 2, 2012

Holiday Wrap Up: Natalie Solis

The holidays have ended and New Year has arrived, so I asked some of Dallas' most famous faces to reflect back and tell me what they most enjoyed about this holiday season and if they have set a New Year's Resolution for themselves.
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Natalie Solis

KDFW/Fox 4 News Anchor-Reporter


Every year I head to San Antonio around the holidays to visit family. Every year it’s a flurry of tissue paper and homemade tamales. This year we decided we’d take my grandparents out for a nice dinner. At 82 and 84 years old, they aren’t exactly hitting the clubs anymore so an evening out is a big deal. As luck would have it that night, it was cold and raining, not misting or drizzling, but pouring. Not the kind of weather elderly people, especially a wobbly granny with vertigo who uses a walker, should be out in. But my grandparents were determined, dressed for the occasion, ready and waiting when we pulled up. 

I’m sure it must have looked like we were doing some kind of tribal dance around a campfire the way we all shuffled around my grandmother, springing into action every time her walker hit a crack in the pavement, but somehow we made it into the restaurant and enjoyed a wonderful meal. 

This year my grandparents will be married 64 years! To each other. The entire time. At dinner my grandmother explained how she met my grandfather. How his brother showed up at her house on my granddad's behalf to ask her parents for her hand in marriage. How she’d gone to bed during the grand gesture because as she put it, “they didn’t need me there.” We laughed. Clearly she was the same person at 18 that she is at 82. 

And I’m sitting there listening, thinking what an unforgettable moment in time this was, with me sharing the table with both of my grandparents, Christmas lights twinkling in the background, hearing how our family came to be.

As for my New Year’s resolutions, I’m still working on them. But one of my girlfriends just told me “go do big things.” I think I will."