Tradition, Tradition!

Can't you just hear that song going through my head?

What do you mean you don't know which song that is? Aren't you up on your musicals?

Fiddler on the Roof is one of my all time favorite musicals. And what makes them for me is the songs.

Anyway, (which seems to be the favorite word of digressing, just ask that Hardly Utopia lady), I love it when my family gets together at my house.

You know, someone else has to do the driving, the packing, the carrying things in my house, and then remembering to carry it all back out.

Of course, I do most of the catering, but MY family helps by bringing food, so that carefully planned menus, a-hum, carefully planned ideas are all thrown up in the air and we catch them as they come down.

Who wants to run a family get together like an army?

Last year my life was rather chaotic so I wanted to enjoy myself when everyone was here, which meant starting early. Cleaning house early, a little every day. Shopping for extra food early, a little every time. It made for a wonderful experience for me and I hope my family enjoyed it too.

We do have fun when we get together and you may be wondering where the tradition comes in. I don't have many traditions for the Christmas holidays. Sometimes we're home, sometimes we're someplace else.

When we go to Texas for the holiday, my sister-in-law has made traditions for us, so she just brought them along.

Santa hats and carol singing.

Great Grandpas and grandbabies. Well, she didn't bring them along, but that is one of the best kind of traditons!

This is one tradition we could do without, bossy younger sisters. (sorry sweetie) But, with so many boy cousins....she needs to stand up for herself!

One REALLY fun game we like to play during the holidays is the White Elephant Game. For the uninitiated, this game is played with everyone bringing a wrapped package of something they don't want or need anymore. After everyone takes a number, the first person picks a package and unwraps it. The next people, in order, take a package to unwrap or steal someone else's. If your package is stolen, you can steal or take a new one. After three steals, no one can steal it anymore. We play that the first person, can steal one last time.

Between this game and the birthday presents for everyone who has birthdays in the last few months, we had a mess of wrappings and stuff all over the floor.

Okay, I guess these kids can get along after all.

Nathan was opening one of Auntie Kim's packages. It was FULL of candy.

They shared.

With the other kids, NOT with me.

Happy Birthday, Lynette!

New hat for Jake!

New slippers for Grandpa.

When our family is at our house for a holiday, we usually end up making doughnuts, whether we have snow or not. This year we had the snow, too. A real blizzard. There wasn't any going out of town, we were stuck.

We got 9 inches of snow in that storm, and with 25-35 mph winds with 50 mph wind gusts, it was quite a storm. But not like north and east of us. My folks couldn't go home for two days, until the wind stopped blowing the roads shut in their area.