On Saturday night, though, Bob, Eric, Ashley and I all packed into the car to look at the Christmas lights. This is an annual event. We had dinner at Prison Brews and then toured JC with Christmas cookies to munch on. It is always a nightmare to plan the trip but this year we had Eric's Google maps to guide us.
We headed to north Missouri early on Sunday. We started Christmas in Wien...by opening gifts to individuals first, then our annual themed gift exchange. This year our theme was "$25 of Dollar General". It was fun to see what people came up with. There was "A Night at Home" with cookies, hot cocoa, a throw and a game, "An Italian Dinner Party" complete with dishes and the food, "Chinese Dinner" with a huge bag of rice, "Numbers" which included a clock, a calculator, a timer, and Soduko puzzles, and many others.
Irene cooked dinner for our crowd of ham, mashed potatoes and gravy, homemade noodles, hot rolls and corn. Mmmm.
We headed to Marceline shortly after to see my side of the family. We opened gifts and snacked on cookies and my mom's homemade egg nog. I finally got a picture of her table of goodies after all these years.
We snacked all afternoon at mom's. She had cooked a turkey and sliced it up and made a pot of vegetable soup. Plus, with sugar cookies and oreo truffles we were very happy people!
What a nice weekend!
ReplyDeleteI like the Dollar General Themed gift idea. It just seems fun.
Merry Christmas to you...by the way...you look great! Love the red coat!
I love your theme ideal! Will have to use that next year for our family Christmas weekend. Have a very Merry Christmas!
ReplyDeleteNow what a cool idea that is...a themed gift giving. My family needs to adopt this for next year.
ReplyDeleteYour mama's table is beautiful. I'm ravenous having just been out shoveling.
Congrats to the graduate...I have a son who just graduated this semester with a BS in Business. A full-time dad, a full-time employee, and a full-time student, and a summa cum laude to boot. I'm so proud of him, I could burst. Thanks for letting me brag a bit here. (I wouldn't dare on my blog...LOL!)
I love the $25 of Dollar General theme, Terri. I'll tell my girls about it. We play a game with $5 gifts. Each family member brings 5 $5 gifts for the game. The Dollar General gift exchange sounds great too.
ReplyDeleteMerry Christmas!
Congratulations to the graduate! What a fun theme for gift giving! I would love it if someone gave me all that TP. One year I asked for a case of paper towels from my MIL and she gave it to me. She thought it was odd though!
ReplyDeleteAll that food looks soo good too!
Merry Christmas!
Manuela
What a great idea! Will have to try that one with the family. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteSounds like you had the same kind of weekend I had, celebrating with family:-) I so enjoyed looking at all the pictures and what fun to have a "themed" gift exchange!! xoxo
ReplyDeleteI love the Dollar General idea. That's so cool. We spelled out our last name for 8 years that was kinda cool. First year was you had to buy or make something that started with an F. The next year an A (we spelled Falkiner) so it took a while but it was so fun to see what people come up with. This theme is great. I'll have to bring it up to my inlaws this week!
ReplyDeleteIt's funny you are in my neck of the woods and every so often I'm in yours for training and meetings and stuff. Small world isn't it? Yes we should get together!I had a doctor's appt. in Columbia at Regional Hospital yesterday and I swear I saw Ashley's picture in a magazine modeling some clothes I think. It sure did look like her.
Love the themed exchange idea! You've gotta tell us about the toilet paper... inquiring minds want to know!
ReplyDeleteYou are looking skinny!!!!:)