Post by Jackie on Dec 27, 2008 14:00:01 GMT -5
My house is soooo quiet I can’t stand it! We had the merriest of Christmases this year. Katie and Tony and Jordan 13 and his sister Hayden 9 along with Em came for a week as did Marnie and Sompop from VA. We really missed David and family in SC but our new webcame gave us some fun moments with his family of 6.
I have to tell you about our Christmas Eve…as you have guessed by now we are a somewhat unorthodox family at times when it comes to traditions…etc. For years and years we have had a formal Christmas Eve dinner with beef tenderloin and all the trimmings followed by the candlelight service at our Presbyterian church.
Well this year we broke with tradition. No one was looking forward to food prep or dishes…so…along with my sister and her family (16 of us) we went to the early family pageant of candles at the church and then out to the Big Texan Steak Ranch www.bigtexan.com/ a huge touristy place on the edge of I 40 that does Christmas decorating like it is going out of style! We had a magnificent dinner of assorted choices…from chicken fried steaks and prime rib to salmon and then shared some Texas sized desserts. Afterwards we dispersed to the games area and LOL…as my daughter laughed there were her kids playing the slots and winning jackpot after jackpot of non negotiable coins…and doing the shooting gallery. She said NOBODY will believe this is how she had her Christmas dinner.
Then we all returned to our house and Marnie who had spent the day holding down the fort with several of the kids and cousins making a gingerbread house…entertained us with a special Christmas pageant she had written with them. It did contain a lovely reading of the Christmas Story which she read…but then we all discovered we were surprise participants in some funny things…such as a “manly singing of Rudolph” by Tony, Jordan, and Sompop, stories from several of us about favorite Christmases…and the finale…a Christmas Pirate Dance by Emily and a Conga Line through the house to Jimmy Buffet’s rendition of Ho Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rum…Santa’s Run off to the Caribbean!!!! What fun. People sort of forgot to go home so by the time we had assembled the keyboard , and Hannah Montana electric guitar, sipped a bit more of our gift wines, it was almost 2 AM. But isn’t Christmas Day really all about being sleep deprived anyhow?
Today (Sat) Hayden got her wish and we had a couple of hours of nice heavy snow which looks like it will melt this afternoon. Living in Austin they are going home today to almost 80 degrees. I am not sure where anyone is sitting in that van…Tony looked so stressed out this AM trying to get all the “stuff” into the car. When someone came downstairs with Katie’s robe as they were to leave…he told her she would have to WEAR it…LOL. I can just imagine bathroom stops…and meals…but Katie is a Happy Camper…she is going home with 22 episodes of Silver Spoons to watch in the car!
We are now sedately packing up Marnie and Sompop who have not figured out how not to take an extra bag and pay for it on the plane. I managed a 226 on my bowling with my new wii this morning that was my gift. That will be hard act for me to follow. And I am already missing Emily and keep forgetting and going into her room to talk to her...sniff.
I hope everyone here had as much fun with their Christmas as we did. I think we still managed to keep the essence of the Season but Merriment was very much a part of it for us this year.
Jackie
I have to tell you about our Christmas Eve…as you have guessed by now we are a somewhat unorthodox family at times when it comes to traditions…etc. For years and years we have had a formal Christmas Eve dinner with beef tenderloin and all the trimmings followed by the candlelight service at our Presbyterian church.
Well this year we broke with tradition. No one was looking forward to food prep or dishes…so…along with my sister and her family (16 of us) we went to the early family pageant of candles at the church and then out to the Big Texan Steak Ranch www.bigtexan.com/ a huge touristy place on the edge of I 40 that does Christmas decorating like it is going out of style! We had a magnificent dinner of assorted choices…from chicken fried steaks and prime rib to salmon and then shared some Texas sized desserts. Afterwards we dispersed to the games area and LOL…as my daughter laughed there were her kids playing the slots and winning jackpot after jackpot of non negotiable coins…and doing the shooting gallery. She said NOBODY will believe this is how she had her Christmas dinner.
Then we all returned to our house and Marnie who had spent the day holding down the fort with several of the kids and cousins making a gingerbread house…entertained us with a special Christmas pageant she had written with them. It did contain a lovely reading of the Christmas Story which she read…but then we all discovered we were surprise participants in some funny things…such as a “manly singing of Rudolph” by Tony, Jordan, and Sompop, stories from several of us about favorite Christmases…and the finale…a Christmas Pirate Dance by Emily and a Conga Line through the house to Jimmy Buffet’s rendition of Ho Ho Ho and a Bottle of Rum…Santa’s Run off to the Caribbean!!!! What fun. People sort of forgot to go home so by the time we had assembled the keyboard , and Hannah Montana electric guitar, sipped a bit more of our gift wines, it was almost 2 AM. But isn’t Christmas Day really all about being sleep deprived anyhow?
Today (Sat) Hayden got her wish and we had a couple of hours of nice heavy snow which looks like it will melt this afternoon. Living in Austin they are going home today to almost 80 degrees. I am not sure where anyone is sitting in that van…Tony looked so stressed out this AM trying to get all the “stuff” into the car. When someone came downstairs with Katie’s robe as they were to leave…he told her she would have to WEAR it…LOL. I can just imagine bathroom stops…and meals…but Katie is a Happy Camper…she is going home with 22 episodes of Silver Spoons to watch in the car!
We are now sedately packing up Marnie and Sompop who have not figured out how not to take an extra bag and pay for it on the plane. I managed a 226 on my bowling with my new wii this morning that was my gift. That will be hard act for me to follow. And I am already missing Emily and keep forgetting and going into her room to talk to her...sniff.
I hope everyone here had as much fun with their Christmas as we did. I think we still managed to keep the essence of the Season but Merriment was very much a part of it for us this year.
Jackie
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All the food was over at moms so we just had prime rib and a couple fixins'. I was not prepared 
It truly was a beautiful day, presents loved by all, food that was just cooked perfect by me and if you really knew me you would know that was a mile stone LOL. A whole Fillet Mignon (sp?) along with Lasagna (sp?) that was just the BEST ever along with tons of different salads breads and such and then the desserts OMG just YUMMY ALL of them ;D 
&
Susan, Proud mom of Michael (32), Justin (25) Emily (22ds), and Jordan (20).