Continuing Christmas Celebration

On Saturday December 23rd at about 4:00 three cars of family members arrived at our house for another round of fun, food and many exciting gifts. Holly, Tony and Max drove down from Edmond...my sister Wanda Kay and her husband Craig came from Shawnee. Their son, Kevin, now lives in OKC, completed the list.

Gift opening always makes for a exciting time...needless to say we filled two large trash bags with torn up paper and other bits of trash. Always makes me wonder why we go to the time to wrap the packages with just the right paper and select the most appealing bows/or other decorations to go on it...then in just a blink of the eye it is gone in opening the gift. Oh, I enjoy the creative process in wrapping the gift. Plus they look nice under the tree until gift opening time.

Afterwards we ate- not the usual typical Christmas meal-I knew they would be having turkey with the trimmings at their house - so I opted for something else. The menu consisted of briskit, baked beans, corn casserole (very delicously prepared by Holly), baked potatoes with choice of butter, sour cream or real bacon bits (I fried the bacon myself) or you could have all three - which most of us did. In the salad line I made cole slaw and Wanda brought a relish tray. Sour dough biscuits (home made -of course) completed the main menu. For dessert-to satisfy everyone-we had our choice of cheese cake (I had made it several days ago and froze it) with either cherries or crushed chocolate cookie crumbs for a topping. Since Leon is diabetic I made him what is called Lime Fluff...it is made with key lime juice...on a chocolate cookie base. I used sugar free jello and a mixture of Splenda and sugar for the souffle part. Tony is very fond of chocolate chip cookies so I whipped up a double batch on Friday...plus there were two other kinds of cookies available.Leon, Holly and Tony relaxing some after eating.
Max just couldn't quite decide if he liked cheese cake or not.
Kevin and Max smiling for the camera.
Since Kevin is single and does his own cooking -though the times are rare - he figures that is why there are many restaurants available...Holly got him a Mexican cookbook. Spanish/Mexican cuisine is his very favorite! I think Craig is offering him some suggestions - probably the main one is "You can cook at home much cheaper than eating out!"

For the past many years Wanda and I have always had a Christmas picture taken like this.

Fun was had by all!