Post-Christmas

I hope everyone's Christmas day was filled with family and fun. Mine was better than usual, which is not to suggest that my family holidays are filled with drama and unpleasantness, because they are not. It just seemed very festive.

The Christmas crackers were tone of fun. We pulled them after dinner, though everyone wanted to pull them one at a time, rather than around the table. But still, fun fun fun! We all wore our paper Christmas crowns that fell out, though to varying degrees of happiness and time. The party poopers took them off immediately after we took the family photos, and I wore mine until the last people left at 10:30 pm.


Christmas lunch was good. I made a turkey baked with a lemon garlic butter under its skin, a glazed ham, green beans with bacon, buttered corn, garlic mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and southern style biscuits. I forget about desserts completely, but my sister brought over a pumpkin cheesecake, so that was a saving grace. I had meant to take a couple of photos of the Christmas feast to put up here, but my two nephews were acting like they hadn't eaten in a week. I hadn't even managed to get all of the food on the table before they were serving themselves, and I didn't want to take photos of a mutilated turkey bowls of food that had been gotten in to.

I was laughing that this year should be called The Year of the Alcoholic, because so many bottles of alcohol were exchanged! My brother gave everyone, EVERYONE, a bottle of wine. He bought them when he was out at some fancy wine place and couldn't help himself, he said. Ha ha! My 23 year old nephew got a bottle of Amaretto, my dad got a bottle of Jeremiah Weed bourbon liqueur, a bottle of Makers Mark whiskey, and a bottle of Jack Daniels, my brother got Jack Daniels, my 23 year old nephew gave away a bottle of Chiroc vodka and a bottle of Makers Mark whiskey to friends. It was totally nuts! We never exchange alcohol and this year was a boozefest.

My uncle is the one in the center dressed as a Chinaman

My mom's brother came by and livened up the place by playing his guitar for a while. He is a professional musician; when he was younger, he was in a band called The Latin Breed that put a few albums out, so having him play for us is always fun.

My brother sang a few songs with him and so did one of my cousins, his daughter. My mom videotaped it all, along with my five year old nephew attempting to strum along on the guitar my brother gave him for Christmas. It was pretty funny watching him try to play as he scowled in concentration and not coming anywhere near a tune. He is very sharp, though, and I expect him to become good in short order. I just hope I'll be around to get to watch him. To be truthful, I am not expecting to, but I am still hopeful.