Christmas - The Full Report

I didn't have to travel far this year to enjoy the Christmas holiday which was a gift in itself as traveling on any holiday is quite stressful & leaves one needing a vacation after being on vacation. I instead remained close by and spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day w/ close friends where we cooked up a mean meal and had a continuous fountain of wine flowing.

The festivities started Christmas Eve as I arrived to hang out w/ Jana where we sipped on red wine and got things ready for the next day where we'd then feed ourselves, the boys and all the others that had nowhere to go for Christmas. Somehow (person w/ big mouth to remain nameless, wink-wink) an open door invite to our Christmas dinner got spread through-out town so we weren't exactly sure how many hungry folks we'd have showing up, but we were prepared none-the-less. (I think we ended up w/ about 12 folks, which was nothing compared to the initial 20ish we thought were coming, so we were happy and the boys were thrilled as there was even a bit of leftovers for them to carry home).

On Christmas Day, I lounged around most of the day and then returned back to Jana's where we continued creating & finishing up the mass meal. In the end we had enough food for an army. We had mozzarella balls, crackers, cheese, 2 fried turkeys (kudos to Fergus for defending his turkey frying crown), mashed potatoes (thanks Mama Shannon for the last minute trick that saved the taters), green beans for days, Turtle's made up casserole, Jana's special stuffing, cranberry/orange sauce, chard, brussel sprouts, cookies, flan, rolls, GF cheddar biscuits....etc. We had more food than we had table space. Everyone seemed to have enjoyed themselves and nothing got burned, nor did anyone get sick and/or die so i'd say the meal was pretty darn successful! And of course, all of us ate too much and then lounged around afterwards in the laid back position praying to the belly gods for some relief on our overfed tummy's as we begged for mercy to be relieved of that "full" feeling.

In addition, anyone that knows us, knows anytime this crew gets together, we always have some sorta entertainment going on amongst ourselves and Christmas Day is NO exception. We busted open the english crackers where we each received a party crown, a joke/riddle and a surprise (i.e. harmonica, slide whistle, bird, temporary tattoos, etc.). I posted a pic of Jana sporting her Christmas party crown below. In addition, Fergus entertained us w/ tales from Ireland and Lars and I had a square off w/ turkey legs (see pic). At the end of the day it was a wonderful evening and a great gathering of good friends and good times.

I am also happy to report that Santa did indeed visit me again this year. He left me super surprised with a GPS. And I am so thrown off by this very thoughtful gift that I've taken it outta the box, hooked it up to watch it light up, then put it back in the box as I have decided I need more time to digest that I am now the owner of such a gadget before installing it in my car.

I also got some new super soft Turtle lounge pants (that btw, went straight the wash so I could wear them ASAP), cute Turtle bath accessories (which ironically match the cute $4.99 turtle bathmat I just scored recently), some GF bath scrub and lotion, a bottle of red wine that i'm afraid to open b/c it's so nice and a cool University of Georgia picture frame with a hideous picture of me as a kid in the 80's complete w/ the 80's hair-do posing w/ "UGA". And last but not least....one of the coolest, most meaningful gifts I received was my Irish family crests which were beautifully framed. I took a close up pic of the just the crests below.

I hope your Christmas was as merry as mine!! Now onward to the New Year......