More Holiday Fun

Christmas got into full gear once everyone started to arrive.  "Everyone" is my sister Sue and her husband Dave, and their friend, Malick, followed by my parents a few days later.  Dave is in the National Guard, and is in Officer Training Camp down in Fort Benning, GA, so we were lucky enough for them to drive up and spend Christmas at our house. 

Malick is also in OTC (see how good I am with the lingo?  But actually, not at all.  I'm really half guessing, and Susannah is going to have to correct me) and is an international officer from The Republic of the Gambia, referred to "the Gambia" for short. 

Not being from here, he didn't have anywhere to go for Christmas, and so he would have had to spend the whole two weeks of leave by himself on the base.  Not exactly full of the Christmas cheer, you might say.  Dave and Sue, in their generous spirit, wanted to do something about that, so they called up and asked if he could come with them, and we were glad of the opportunity.

They arrived Tuesday night, and we didn't do a whole lot the first couple of days, mostly just hung out and watched movies, particularly our perennial favorite, "A Christmas Story."  The season's just not complete without hearing, "I triple-dog-dare ya!" 

[Sidebar: for some reason we haven't watched any of the Christmas movies that Jeff and I usually make a point to watch, like "White Christmas," or "Miracle on 34th Street," because Jeff has been so busy with Bishopric stuff, and helping the Bishop with tithing settlement, but somehow we were able to find the time to watch that classic holiday movie, "Better off Dead."  --It is too a holiday movie!  Don't you remember him unwrapping TV dinners Christmas morning?  Ahh, good times, good times.]

Anyway, Malick was a good sport about all of it.  The girls glommed on to him within 5 minutes of his arrival, and were constantly asking for an airplane ride, or sitting on his lap while we watched a movie, or whatever.  He is Muslim, so most of what we were doing was fairly new to him, but he seemed to enjoy it.  We didn't curtail any of our family traditions, but always gave him the option to participate, and he usually did.

When my parents got there Thursday afternoon we started the activities off with a bang, frosting the sugar cookies that Sue and Dave had mixed together while I was picking Mom and Dad up at the airport, and ending with a re-enactment of the Joseph Smith story in honor of his birthday on the 23rd, just before bedtime.  Like I said, we didn't hold back.  :o)

For Christmas eve day we decided that most of us would get sick, so my mom, Sue, and Jarom, all had high fevers, sore throats, and hacking coughs, while the rest of us all had running noses, regular coughs, and enough green snot to start selling it on ebay, if there ever was a market for that kind of thing.

Everyone was able to pretty much pull it together with the help of medication, except for poor Jarom who tried very hard to be festive, but spent most of the special Christmas Eve dinner (Irish seafood chowder. . .YUM!!) with his head down, and couldn't stay awake for the reading of the Christmas story and singing Christmas hymns.

I personally had a wonderful time, and got teary-eyed several times as I looked around and saw my family gathered around the piano, singing, just as I had hoped when we first bought the house.

Christmas Eve wasn't actually that stressful, mostly because Jeff and I have finally clued in, and wrapped our presents the week before.  So all we really had to do was get the presents from the attic, and fill the stockings.  With everyone's stuff around the tree, as you can see, our cup runneth over.  :o)

Christmas morning was fun, as always, and took a little longer than usual, mostly because we had so many more people, which was great, especially because our kids had to wait for other people to open their gifts, and couldn't just rip into stuff without thinking.  Well, there was some ripping, but they had to wait to do it.

We had our traditional Christmas breakfast of sweet rolls, grapefruit, and hot chocolate, made even yummier by the presence of "Angelina's", hot chocolate from Paris, France, courtesy of my mother from her last trip to visit Sue there.  It is very rich, and very wonderful, and made Christmas very special.

Christmas dinner was yummy too, very traditional, giving Malick his first taste of American turkey.  Note how poor Jarom is practically unconscious, even though we're having some of his absolute favorite things to eat.
The rest of Christmas day was very low-key, just playing with new toys, chatting, and doing a puzzle from "Santa," another one of our family traditions.  All in all, it was a wonderful Christmas, and it was wonderful to have everyone here.

Next up. . .SNOW!!