Here we are. My 38th Christmas and my 4th Christmas without Grammie. It just isn't the same without her. If you asked me years ago on how I would be spending Christmas in the year 2021, I wouldn't have come close to guessing how we actually spent it this year. I would have told you that we would be spending it with everyone either at my house or someone else's without this awful stupid pandemic that is still, two years later, circling the globe. I am so sick and tired of people keeping Covid around.
This year we were a little behind on everything...getting the tree, decorating, putting the lights on the house, doing Christmas cards, etc. because Doug's lifestyle change kept us very busy. That also meant that the list for the family gift exchange was also pushed back a little bit so when Mom did decide to get it done, it didn't give us a lot of time to get a hold of the person we had to find out what they wanted and purchase it for them. I also had to find out if Kevin, Karla and Tracy were coming so we knew to include them in the gift exchange. I emailed them and Kevin and Karla are still weird about Covid, and Tracy supposedly was working on Christmas. I told Mom not to include them, so she didn't, and we emailed everyone the list in early December.
Everyone spent the next few weeks trying to find presents for everyone. I am thankful I spent most of the year getting little things for everyone as the year went on, so I wasn't doing it all in December with everything else going on.
I emailed everyone again on December 20th, to let them all know the tentative schedule for Christmas and what times we were doing everything. I made sure to get that to Trish, Ed, Amy and Jean since they were the ones who were traveling from the furthest away to get here.
Ben and I went to bed really late the night before, but I still set the alarm for 8 a.m. We had a bunch of stuff to do before everyone got here around 9. I put both casseroles in the oven because they had to cook for an hour, cut up the blueberry muffins into fourths, bunched the grapes, washed them and cut the bananas in half. Everything went in a fancy bowl or platter. Ben put the table clothes on the tables because if we did it the night before, the kitties would have messed it up and put holes in it. We set the tables with Grammie's plates and cups, put up decorations and then did some last-minute things before everyone got there.
I got all of the food onto the dining room table in the other room and people started to arrive. We helped them bring in their presents and took their coats as they got settled in. Dad went to go pick up Grandpa from Bonaventure as we were getting the final touches on breakfast and people arriving. Dad got there shortly after everyone with Grandpa in tow just in time for breakfast. We wheeled him up to the head of the table and Dad helped dish up food for him. We got him a straw for his orange juice.
We all grabbed some breakfast from the awesome food spread and sat down at the table. We ate, catted about random things...mostly about the snow that was supposedly going to come later on tonight. I will believe it when I see it because we rarely get a white Christmas.
After we were done eating, we cleaned up and I loaded up the dishwasher and started load of laundry with the cloth napkins so they would be available for dinner as well. Dad wheeled Grandpa around so we could visit and talk with everyone. He even got to per Charlie, who was wearing his sweater, in his pen. We all gathered in the living room, found a place to sit and got ready to open presents. This year Ben was Santa and handed out presents to everyone.
It was a wrapping paper-box frenzy for about a half hour. It was hard to see what everyone else got since everyone was opening presents at the same time. I got a Golden Girls calendar from Erika, a crap ton of board games from Willmarth, an external hard drive and a headphone case for my Skull Candy headphones from Ben, we got a pot from Trish and Amy gave us some Home Depot gift cards. My main gift to Ben was the Kraken jersey. I hope we get to go to a Kraken game to where we get to wear our jerseys. Wade came out for a while to see what was going on and Oliver didn't want nothing of it.
There was so much paper and boxes on the floor you could wade through them. Yes, we all threw waded up wrapping paper at each other, plus there were the Nerf shotguns from yesterday and arrows were being shot everywhere too.
It was quite the chaotic scene. We let the dog out of his pen for a while and of course we threw waded up wrapping paper at him too.
Everyone helped cleaning up the wrapping paper from the floor and Trish broke down all the boxes for me so we could save them and reuse them next Christmas. We all spent time getting our stuff organized and a few of us decided to head home for a few hours. Erika, Zach, Mom and Grandma all went home for a while. Dad took Grandpa back to Bonaventure and then went home. Trish, Ed, Amy and Jean stayed here with us. I got the two halves of ham out of the fridge and started to prepare them for roasting. I mixed up the glaze and got the pineapples out. Ben helped me poke pineapples into the ham. I poured the glaze on it, set the temperature and put the aluminum foil on it and let it cook for about 5 hours. Doug fell asleep on the couch, Amy did later on, and Ben did just before dinner was ready.
I did a little bit of cleaning, we played a few games from our box Willmarth gave us including King's Crown and I swear to God, somehow, Ed was cheating because this game isn't the easiest to play. We played a couple rounds of marbles and a few games of 10,000. I didn't win any of them. I periodically checked the ham off and on. We watched the 1:30 p.m. game of featuring the Browns and Packers. The Packers were very lucky to have won that game. Packers won 24-22.
As dinner time approached, Jean and Trish helped me get things going including the potatoes, gravy, green beans and the rolls. Trish was supposed to bring the rolls and left them at home, so I called Erika to have her, and Zach bring over the leftovers from last weekend's Christmas party at Grandma's house. Yes, we made fun of Trish for the remainder of the evening. I assigned Grandma Jell-O and apple crisp, Mom and Dad were bringing the veggie platter and cookies, Erika and Zach were responsible for the salad and now the rolls and Ben and I were pretty much responsible for the rest.
That last hour of getting everything ready was crazy but was glad to have the help since the peeling, cutting and boiling potatoes take up a bunch of time. The new pot Trish got us for Christmas sure came in handy. Ben helped me change out the tablecloths for a set of new ones, we got out Grammie's other plates, the same glasses and silverware and set out some decorations as we did during breakfast. I noticed it started snowing lightly. We may get a white Christmas after all!
We started setting the food on the dining room table as it got done and Trish made the gravy. She almost used all of my corn starch because it didn't want to thicken for us. We laughed and gave her a hard time. Yes, we added that she forgot the rolls too. Haha. Everyone was waiting patiently to eat while we waited for the gravy to get done. After about fifteen minutes, Trish said that it was as ready as it's going to be. Let's eat!
The food definitely hit the spot and turned out fantastic. We all watched the snow fall outside. Some of us complained and some of us embraced it. I embraced it. I enjoy the snow since we hardly get any living in an area that doesn't get much snow each winter. Lately, we've been lucky, but it rarely snows on Christmas. It was still weird having Christmas without all of our people. I was happy that Grandpa got to come for breakfast and socialize with everyone. It was a little bit of normal to how we used to celebrate family holidays.
Once we were done eating, we cleaned up, I loaded the dishwasher for the second time that day, washed the cloth napkins and the cloth table cover from the dining room table. We ended up watching the second game, the Colts and Cardinals, pretty much the rest of the evening. That one was close as well with the Colts knocking off the Cardinals 22-16. We played a few games for those of us who wanted to, ate dessert and then we took a few dozen family photos before everyone decided they should get on the road before the snow accumulated.
We thanked everyone for coming and Ben and I spent a few minutes putting the tables and chairs away. We put the food away and did the rest of the dishes that needed to be hand washed. I asked Ben if he wanted to go with me to Tumwater to feed Alicia's dogs and he said sure. The drive over was quite interesting because the snow had accumulated on different parts of the road. I wasn't worried though. My Escape actually drives pretty well in the snow. We let the chihuahuas go to the bathroom and we made sure they had food and water. We weren't there very long because she was coming home the next day from her trip. We headed home.
I took many pictures of the snow because I was super excited that it actually snowed on Christmas since it hasn't done it for a while. We spent the rest of the night putting stuff away, watching television and relaxing before it was time for bed. Ben, unfortunately, had to go to work the next day at JBLM so he could plow the roads from 3 p.m. to 11 p.m. so that meant his schedule was going to be weird the rest of the week.
Merry Christmas everyone!
Next Adventure: A Week of Snow and Ice
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