Well the day started with a little sleep in until about 7:30 after a busy day and evening on Friday. We were having a large group for breakfast so Nancy had made most of the preparations i.e. breakfast casserole the day before. It just needed to be put out to warm up to room temperature before baking. We just chilled doing our quiet time and playing on the Internet until the hungry gang arrived at 10 AM. GG brought her famous fruit salad, Carol brought cheese blintz's, Amy brought home fries and then of course there was juice and biscuits with home made strawberry and black raspberry preserves. We ate and visited until about noon when everyone left to take a nap.
I took out the standing 16 1/2 pound rib roast to warm up to room temp as well before getting it ready to pop into the oven around 2 PM. Nancy did her Santa thing with bringing out loads of presents to surround the Christmas tree. I finished up a good read and then headed over to Tyler's on the bike to help him with putting together a large Weber gas grille his parents had shipped to him from Kansas. That took a couple hours and we were successful. Now we just need some of that delicious Kansas beef his grandfather Sonny raises to see if it really works.
GG and Pap came around 4:30 so we let the eating begin once again with cheeses, shrimp, summer sausage and homegrown radishes and some of my homemade blackberry vino. The smell from the roast had our mouths watering. Amy and Tyler with the kids were the next to arrive then Bobby and Jill and their kids were next and finally Aunt Betsy arrived with her 2 boys Braden and Garrett. Amy brought a huge salad, Betsy a spinach casserole with mushrooms and Bobby had made a special bread pudding dessert with a hot sauce he later put together. There were mashed spuds with a gravy made made from the roast juices and of course Bobby's own add ins as well as cooked carrots. Well needless to say we were all stuffed by the time we finished with the dessert which was somewhere around 8 PM. I just wanted to find a quiet room to hibernate but we hadn't even opened any presents yet and the girls were bouncing off the walls with anticipation.
Finally we got to the gift opening and it was bedlam. Amy decided we needed to do it in an orderly fashion the way Tyler's family does it in Kansas as they too have large family gatherings during the holidays. The youngest to the oldest then reverse the order. That worked out pretty good except for Ava an Annsley which were hyper, so we just let them open their gifts so they could head off to play. Samuel found one of his gifts we had moved into another room and of course with his Army style crawl he found it and we could see he was entertained while playing with all the buttons, he was so cute. Little Gabey just entertained us with his cooing and smiles.
Everyone had a great time and around 10 PM or so all started to pack up and head for home. I had been in between dinner, dessert and coffee washing dishes so by the time most had left I had a handle on the restoration of the kitchen and the dining room. Man was I stuffed so much I just wanted to hit the showers and then go to bed. Finally it was time to turn out the lights and listen to the wind as it came through with a roar. We are expecting high winds all through the night and into Sunday.
We have been checking the weather for the mountains and it seems they were having a white Christmas which started sometime after lunch and by dark the ground was covered. This morning (Sunday) it looked on the web cam at Roaring Gap there were several inches of the white stuff and still snowing. The northeast and all the way down to the deep south snow was on the ground and blizzard conditions were starting to envelope much of the country. Will someone tell what happen to all those Al Gore's that predicted there was global warming, just another political scam. Oh well!!!
Well it times to get ready for another NEW YEAR, so may all have a blessed one. LATER
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