Wednesday, December 3, 2008

The holiday bliss




One more version of a Thanksgiving in the Abrahamson household. The plans were big, the anticipation equally great but one must always stay flexible with this crew. I planned dinner for between 1-2 so we would have amble time for the most important 2nd dinner of leftovers later in the evening however I got caught up doing lights and didn't get the turkey in early enough for that ambitious time goal. At one point in the AM I went into the living room with all the family there along with 4 laptop computers. Thankfully they weren't e-mailing one another but they were still lost in their own worlds mostly checking out the sales for Black Friday. By noon most were asleep which left me with the lights and food both of which make excellent company.
Doug and Peyton waiting for the food!!
Now normally its occassions like this that get me thinking about how I could enlarge the kitchen. Once it gets close to meal time there are a number of people trying to help get it all on the table but there is not much space in the kitchen to operate. With two kinds of gravy on the stove, potatos to be mashed and fruit salad being made plus the meats that need to be carved, you have to be very carefully when you turn around that you don't knock somebody out.

The big shortage this year was in highchairs, all three little ones are eating some solid foods and do it best from the highchair but we only have one in the house. We did manage to get all the people feed and then it was rest time for the big shopping extravaganza that was to be our Friday. I had already come to grip with it mentally that I was going to have to go out shopping if I wanted to spend some time with Dee Dee. I had already offered to take Peyton with us as Jesse had to work and Tressa had a huge shopping day planned out. I figured I might as well teach Peyton the ropes on how to survive these shopping events by knowing which places had snack bars to get popcorn, an Icee and best of all carmel corn or cotton candy. If we planned it just right we might end up at the mall for a Cinnabon. I thought Peyton and I would eat and look at the Christmas displays while Dee Dee did the actual shopping. But alas it was not to be. Tressa was sick cutting her middle of the night shopping short and eliminating the day altogether, Melia's plans were changed somewhat leaving her without someone to watch Isabell. Everyone who wanted to go shopping offered to stay home and watch the kids but I used my family seniority to win out and got to remain home with Peyton and Isabell and keeping an eye on Tressa. Now thats the way to spend a day. The ladies enjoyed their shopping and the kids and I had a blast. before Tressa got REALLY sick!
With the Christmas tree up the young ones love to look at it and Peyton likes to see it with his hands. So far he has only sent one of the simple ornament balls to the garbage can in hundreds of pieces but boy I think he would sure like to get his hands on more of them to "see" what they are really like.

Its Wednesday now and the leftovers are all gone but the pleasure of the family all gathered together for the holiday still linger on. When I commented about our lack of serving dishes and leftover storage containers one of the kids asked why we don't have some nicer or fancier stuff for such occassions. I replied that we had always planned on getting some one the kids moved out and when had room to store it all. At that Jesse said that we must not be planning on doing that for quite a few more years. I hope so!
In the true Abrahamson competitive spirit the kids decided on Sun, to have baby races.( they some how thought this would be like the kitten races they used to have when the were much younger and would line all the kittens up in a row and see who would cross the yard the quickest.) The game was to see who, Isabell or Madison, would get to the objects in the middle first. The babies on the other hand never really got the hang of the game. We'll have to go back to our family staple of puzzle races at christmas!( more on that later)

Isabell and Madison- ready, set, go!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

We are so weird to do baby races... Oh well it was fun to watch. For Christmas dinner I promise to help you more dad!!