I hope everyone's Christmas was at least as fun as mine if not more! But to tell the truth - it started somewhat less than exciting. I take off so much time throughout the year going on long weekends here and there that I was super happy to be able to make it up to my office by offering to be the one to stay at my desk until 5 PM and answer the phone. I forgot to unforward all the phones before leaving for the holiday though and am about once a day having to answer questions about where to get transcripts or what to do when logged out of your email account, ha ha.
Around about 3:00 things really slowed down on the last day before closing and I finished all the odds and ends I had been working on. I decided to tackle the unthinkable and clean out the office fridge. It was... um... an experience. I didn't think to take a before photo but trust me when I say one had to jockey for room in the fridge when brining in leftover lunch out. It was PACKED. My criteria for tossing was: visibly rotting, opened containers (like half-drunk bottles of water or soda) or expired food. I filled two trash cans, and now:
plenty of room for all your cooling needs
i literally threw away a container of milk that has expired in june of 2007
I rallied against the horror and went out for happy hour with friends!
five friends livin' large and laughing at a christmas eve eve celebration
see? the silliness continues...
On Christmas Eve in years' past, the children often would perform for the adults their various talents. Over the years, the Venable Clan has been privy to my angelic warbling of carols as a child, followed by my sweet sweet stylings on the flute, and many many dances and cheers as a teenager. As the children grew older, the talent shows fell off, but this year we had a whole new crop of performers ready to take up the mantle! It was very exciting!
ashton tootles on the clarinet (please note the green nail polish still intact)
followed by cousin bobbye (purple polish on bobbye)
cousin emily is a natural ham and told the venable traditional story about the crooked mouth family. emily really got into the role this year and was really overacting and blew the candle out at the wrong moment to much hilarity.
kim gets in the talent action with a recital on her viola
and clay demonstrates his prowess as an effective and useful music stand
I sat on the floor in case you didn't notice. And of course the evening wrapped up with...
no christmas eve would be complete without a visit from st. nick
Next up; oh boy oh boy oh boy! Christmas morning! I know I've explained about the Santa Claus collection I have, but it appears we accidentally are collecting:
snowmen now too. we got two new ones this year to add to all of these.
Christmas morning, Tommy and I began to lament not getting our uncles anything special for Christmas. We put our heads together and quickly crafted these two babies:
a pocket sized mary doll (see here for full story) for uncle ronny, and a walking miracle doll for papa tony (cause papa tony is a walking miracle according to his doctor)
I was super glad we went the extra mile, because my auntie Lianne couldn't make Christmas dinner so Ronny brought another date instead. You know it...
mmm-hmmm...
Mama knit all the women mufflers for Christmas! Here we all are modeling our scarves:
we make warm and cozy look good
After eating and opening gifts we all settle down and play with toys:
max and tommy hangin'
Mary and Ronny got in a fight so Mary asked if she could hang with us for the rest of the night. She hadn't visited with the Mowrers in years, so I texted them that we were bringing along a special guest and we took her along to their house!
buckled up for safety
Mary hadn't dressed for the weather as you can plainly see, so when we got to the Mowrers she borrowed Matt's Christmas gift and warmed up.
snuggie
It ended up snowing pretty hard so Mr. Smith and I bunked up with the Mowrers instead of trying to make it home. I call it "New Year's Preview":
four friends all settled down for a long winter's night
The day after Christmas, the four Venable siblings all go out to supper and have sibling supper and time to visit. Since they were going to Regas, and since Regas is closing at the end of the year (both Clay and me had our rehearsal dinners there SNIFF) cousin Greg and I decided to crash with our spouses. We sat for three hours, eating, telling stories and laughing.
we ushered the regas era out in style
Speaking of good food, please enjoy this ending montage of my favorite things I ate this holiday season:
homemade egg muffin (i have eaten one of these every morning for breakfast they are goooo-ooood)
i wanted onion soup so i invented a recipe and buddy, was it ever gooooo-oooood
Star of the show?
matt mowrer's boeuf bourguignon
Tomorrow: the day I dread all year long. The Santas all come down, the tree comes down, the Spode comes down and everything goes back to boring and normal. Sigh. It really stinks because Tommy works all week this week and I have off. I take the time off during the day to 'spring clean' but that means I'm doing all these tedious and boring chores all by myself. Yesterday I cleaned out every drawer and clothes closet, today was hall and bathroom closets, fridge (I'm on a regular fridge-cleaning TEAR, lemmetellya) and microwave, but tomorrow's the biggie. I'm going to be a real cranky-pants this time tomorrow. It's such a catch-22; I love a nice, orderly and clean house but find housekeeping to be soooo tedious. Same as I like to eat good food, but don't like having to put it together for myself (which explains why I eat out so much!)
But in any event, tomorrow's the mother lode. Speaking of good food - supper's upstairs waiting so I'd better shove off. More exciting adventures in the year to come I'm sure!! Have a happy new year!
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