Merry Christmas to you! We hope your celebration was peaceful and fun, with lots of great food and great company!
This year was a little different with a slight undercurrent of sad for us, for two reasons. This is the first year we've celebrated Christmas without the Magnuson fam's beloved Grandma B. We used to have these raucous, fun Christmas Eve gatherings at her cozy house (now cousin Beth's cozy house), where most of the extended family crammed into her living room and shared Sue's famous cheese ball with crackers, fat sandwiches with lots of mayo, two or three different delicious hot soups (steak soup!), and a variety of desserts that invariably left me in a
very satisfied food coma. After the meal came a boisterous white-elephant-style gift exchange between the adults, followed by gifts between those who didn't participate in the white elephant. And through it all, Grandma B would perch on her favorite spot on the couch in faded house slippers, popping chocolates into her mouth and laughing at our histrionics, and protesting she'd been given too many gifts. She was a sight very much missed this year.
So instead of gathering at Grandma/Beth's house this Christmas Eve, we gathered at Sara and Dustin's beautiful new home, set in the rolling hills of the Ramble Ridge neighborhood (I just love that name). And I think the family truly had no less fun than in years past! There was a large floor plan for the usual manly capers and tomfoolery, a huge basement for the kids, and PLENTY to eat.
The second slightly sad thing is that my parents moved to Ohio earlier this year, so this is the first Christmas I've spent away from them, ever. Our Christmases were usually more do-whatever and relaxing than raucous, but they weren't any less celebratory. Melissa got to spend Christmas with them and said she spent the whole time being a pile, which is usually how Christmas worked for the kids in our house! I have to say it was really strange and slightly awkward to be at my Grandpa's house with only my aunts and uncles, and not my parents or brother and sister. (No pictures, I'm a terrible granddaughter.)
Since Melissa was going to see our parents and I'd miss Christmassing with HER too, we decided to have a little dinner of our own and hang out all night. And since we were making a vegetarian dinner, we decided to invite a couple with whom we're friends to have dinner with us too, because they weren't going home to Portland for Christmas. So on the eve of the 21st, Melissa, Zach and Rebecca joined us for dinner delights, holiday music and relaxing. Jason was playing a concert, Christmas with the Symphony, so we just kept a plate warm for when he joined us afterward.
On the menu was Rebecca's delectable salad with pears, a fancy schmancy mushroom and goat cheese lasagna, Melissa's prize side dish of sweet potatoes and pecans, a buche de noel (fluffy chocolate yule log) for dessert, my annual wassail to drink, and of course lots of wine. There was plenty, and we ate nearly all of it.
It's been an emotional, but happy season. It's interesting how our lives change, and how we all change toward each other to make up the difference.
