Xmas

[Armybrat]

Well, my favorite part of Christmas these days is giving my guns & ammo to the sons & grandsons. Makes more room in the safe.

[DavidWJ]

Christmas is the celebration of Christ's birth on a once pagan holiday. nonChristians have reverted Christmas in the USA to the pagan holiday (the abbreviation XMAS) and just do the giving and receiving presents thing. That's a good thing for retailers and wonderful for children.

Is for my house, we'll keep the Christ in Christmas.

[Bills1873]

Amen, David!

[b4uqzme]

^^^ Yep. In our hearts and home there's room for Christ, presents and Old Glory too! Have a great Christmas everyone!

[Bawanna]

Is that your house? What a beauty. I love that. Very very cool architecture. Columns, dormers, sweet!

[dustnchips]

No presents given or received here. It really makes Christmas stress free and fun. We do a White Elephant on Christmas day with my girlfriends family and we have a ball with it. After everyone gets a present we set a timer for 20 minutes and roll dice. If you roll a seven you can trade with anyone. When the timer goes off you keep whatever you have. The last five minutes people are rolloing quick and trading fast. We use a cake pan to roll the dice in and just pass it around.

[b4uqzme]

Thanks Colonel. I'm flattered. It was built in 1870 and it's been a labor of our love since about 1999. The projects never end.

[Bawanna]

Even neater, 1870? Wow. Endless projects but super cool.

My grandparents house in Missouri was cool, not near as big or as nice as yours but I sure liked it. Sadly its gone in disrepair and my cousins who are carpenters didn't think it was even salvageable. I was trying to buy it. Sets on 94 acres of farm land surrounded by miles of farm land that is worked but nobody lives on.

Just my kind of place.

[AIRret]

Wow, 1870, double wow! It looks like the house has everything…including a white picket fence and great home owner!!

That's a home…definitely not just a house!

[Armybrat]

Most of our presents are wrapped and will be under the tree this afternoon. Grandma Brat has been preparing a number of items for our family Christmas brunch tomorrow morning. #1 son suggested we do a brunch this year instead of the usual late afternoon sitdown dinner. Family will be coming over about 11am. Granddaughter drove in from Lubbock yesterday afternoon. We really worry about her driving that 350 miles down from the plains solo on such a busy travel day.

Basically it's going to be the same smoked ham & turkey, dressing & gravy, rolls, a couple of veggies....PLUS Belgian waffles (regular & vegan), cinnamon rolls, applewood smoked bacon, sausage patties, breakfast casserole, fruit salad, Mimosas, Bloody Marys, pumpkin pie, cheesecake, vegan chocolate chip cookies, & pecan tarts. Son is smoking the ham & turkey overnight while DIL is making the fruit salad & green bean casserole (gawd I hate that stuff!).

So what was a big hassle to begin with is now a double workload. Grandma Brat just finished baking the 2 lbs of bacon and frying a pound & a half of sausage patties. I fried up the pound of sausage for the breakfast casserole which will be assembled this evening to be ready for baking in the morning. Right now she's mincing up all the veggies for the dressing (she baked the cornbread yesterday). Also I premixed the Bloody Marys in two carafes (had to sample a bit after watching Grandma Brat work).

Of course, I've been doing all the kitchen cleanup and vacuumed the house. The desserts were done yesterday and are in the fridge, which will be packed overnight. We are just going to use paper plates tomorrow.

Grandma Brat will be going to Mass at 4pm today, as there is only one scheduled tomorrow morning at 10. That will give me a chance to surf NSAA for a while.

Believe I will have to sample another Bloody Mary now.

Merry Christmas Eve all!

[yqtszhj]

Even neater, 1870? Wow. Endless projects but super cool.

My grandparents house in Missouri was cool, not near as big or as nice as yours but I sure liked it. Sadly its gone in disrepair and my cousins who are carpenters didn't think it was even salvageable. I was trying to buy it. Sets on 94 acres of farm land surrounded by miles of farm land that is worked but nobody lives on.

Just my kind of place.

Now that place would be awesome. I missed out on my grandmothers child hood home a few years ago (it was my great great grandfathers place, her grand fathers) had 85 acers and a house from 1900. Best of all it had 2 giant work buildings for whatever you wanted, all for $160,000. Real hillbilly area too which was nice. but it was out of state for me so it didnt work out. I should have quit my job and moved anyway. I regret it at times.

[Bawanna]

Most of our presents are wrapped and will be under the tree this afternoon. Grandma Brat has been preparing a number of items for our family Christmas brunch tomorrow morning. #1 son suggested we do a brunch this year instead of the usual late afternoon sitdown dinner. Family will be coming over about 11am. Granddaughter drove in from Lubbock yesterday afternoon. We really worry about her driving that 350 miles down from the plains solo on such a busy travel day.

Basically it's going to be the same smoked ham & turkey, dressing & gravy, rolls, a couple of veggies....PLUS Belgian waffles (regular & vegan), cinnamon rolls, applewood smoked bacon, sausage patties, breakfast casserole, fruit salad, Mimosas, Bloody Marys, pumpkin pie, cheesecake, vegan chocolate chip cookies, & pecan tarts. Son is smoking the ham & turkey overnight while DIL is making the fruit salad & green bean casserole (gawd I hate that stuff!).

So what was a big hassle to begin with is now a double workload. Grandma Brat just finished baking the 2 lbs of bacon and frying a pound & a half of sausage patties. I fried up the pound of sausage for the breakfast casserole which will be assembled this evening to be ready for baking in the morning. Right now she's mincing up all the veggies for the dressing (she baked the cornbread yesterday). Also I premixed the Bloody Marys in two carafes (had to sample a bit after watching Grandma Brat work).

Of course, I've been doing all the kitchen cleanup and vacuumed the house. The desserts were done yesterday and are in the fridge, which will be packed overnight. We are just going to use paper plates tomorrow.

Grandma Brat will be going to Mass at 4pm today, as there is only one scheduled tomorrow morning at 10. That will give me a chance to surf NSAA for a while.

Believe I will have to sample another Bloody Mary now.

Merry Christmas Eve all!

You don't like Green Bean Casserole. I love that stuff. Sounds like you got a fine day ahead of ya anyhow. Try the casserole, maybe it's an acquired taste like scotch or something. I believe I partake of a wee dram of the spirts myself. Cabin bound with too much snow for a derelict and don't want to go no place anyhow so all is good.
Looks like I've been assigned some gift wrapping. A few for the family and 827 for the two week old grandson and 2 year old granddaughter. Perfect!