Our Christmas was perfectly jolly!
The party on Christmas Eve went far better than we planned. In addition to Ty's family being added to the mix, an out of state branch of the family braved a 10 hour drive on icy highways to get here in time for dinner and the dice game!
We didn't really have a 'dinner'. What we had was a spread that include huge pot of gumbo, 10 racks of ribs, 10lbs of chicken wings, cocktail wieners, salads, chips, crackers, home made breads, cheeses of all descriptions and more cookies than you can shake a stick at, available for grazing, snacking and wolfing down all afternoon and evening. There were plenty of beverages, including the adult variety but not too much of that was imbibed, due to it being afternoon. A little bit of wine was opened, one bottle of Prosecco was downed and some martinis were shook but considering there were 43-47 of us, not that much at all. I myself, had nothing but water and coffee all day. The party started at 1, but some didn't arrive until the Vikings had finished winning their game, bringing fresh additions to the already enormous spread.
We had moved all the kids' toys to their lair in the basement, as well as a large, low coffee table with crayons, markers and paper. Oh, and two packages of candy canes. We didn't have to tell any of the kids it was all down there, they found it on their own. By the end of the evening, it looked like a tornado had blown through my basement. Perfect!
We put chairs in the little bedroom off the kitchen that has acted as a playroom for the last few years. It was a nice, quiet spot to get away from the noise of the larger party. Jay and I had been a bit curious to see how we'd fit all those people into our house but it all worked.
We had originally thought we'd play the dice game (the gift exchange) around 4, but when we found out that Matt's family had decided to brave the drive, there was no way we were going to let them arrive too late to play, so we waited. There was great joy when they arrived! They managed to navigate hundreds of icy miles to get here only to get into a slight fender bender the moment they parked in front of our house: in their haste to get to the party, one of the boys opened his door into oncoming traffic. I believe a couple of mirrors were the casualties. No one was injured but there may well have been tears, fulfilling the Pivec axiom: It ain't Christmas til someone's crying.
There were so many of us that we couldn't all fit in one room when it was time to play but we figured it out. Since there were so many little kids, we tweaked the rules of the game a bit: anyone under the age of 10 could retire from the game once they had a gift they wanted to keep. That removed 12 players after the first flurry. Then it was 15 minutes of total noise and confusion while the remaining 30 people rolled dice and stole gifts from each other. Although there were no particular things that everyone fought over this year and in fact, hardly any memorable items at all, many of the revelers declared it the best game we've ever played. I just love the fact that we've managed to keep presents a huge part of the proceedings, while completely eliminating the greed from our Christmas party.
Having started at lunch time, the party began breaking up around 6. It was, as usual this time of year, full dark and those of us over 50 felt like it was midnight. Families began packing up their gifts and kids and getting on home so that everyone could be snug in their beds when ol' St. Nick arrived.
Our own grandkids were the last to leave. Xena, Babalouie and BoopityBoop did an admirable job of cleaning up the tornado debris in the lair. Katie and BoopityBoop were going to drop in on my sister's Christmas Eve party on their way home. She invited me to join them but I had plans: put away the food and pass out for about 12 hours.
I managed to do both, plus watch the final episode of season 3 of Emily in Paris.
Christmas morning, Jay and I slept in, had a nice lazy morning, then got ready to go to the 11:30 mass downtown at the Basilica of St. Mary. The mass was nothing short of magnificent. They had a full choir and orchestra and at one point we had dueling trumpeters. The music brought tears to my eyes. It was the most full I've seen the church since '19 and when we sang Joy to the World! at the recessional, you could tell everyone really meant it.
We headed to my daughter's house in mid afternoon. Our plan B had been to exchange our family gifts on Christmas Eve after the rest of the party ended but parties are a lot like battles in that one must have a plan going in but be ready to adapt to conditions on the ground. We adapted by bringing our gifts to Katie's an hour early. There, we finally were able to exchange Christmas gifts with our kids and grandkids and it was absolutely lovely. Jay and I both got a lot of wonderful, thoughtful things and the best gift of all was a great big beautiful portait of all 6 of the grandkids. Some time this week, I'm going to re arrange all the art on the walls of our TV room to put that photo in a place of honor. It's been 5 years since we got a photo of all our grandkids; they're twice as old now and there are 2 more of them!
Katie's house is absolutely designed for large parties: huge, open, beautiful rooms on several different levels, including a man cave with a large screen TV and pool table at the lowest level, two fireplaces in two different great rooms, two Christmas trees, decorated with completely different Christmas vibes (one is green with colored lights, the other a white tree, trimmed in all red and gold!) and all the way upstairs, Katie's office, with a bank of windows overlooking her huge, gorgeous back yard. That part of the house wasn't strictly for the party but some of us sneaked in there (with the hostess) for some quite conversation. Once again, the food was plentiful and the company entertaining. Very few gifts were exchanged but many loud, noisy games were played. With my side of the family, every game quickly devolves into the blurt game, where we all just try to scream out the answers before anyone else. It's fun! But it is very, very loud.
Having slept a full 12 hours between parties, Jay and I felt pretty good! We didn't eat too much, we didn't over imbibe and we didn't stay up too late. There's even a little bit of gumbo left over that we can have for lunch.
Today, I plan on getting dressed but that's about it.
Merry Christmas!