The 12 pounds of Christmas

At Hill Air Force Base, where I work, we don't celebrate the 12 days of Christmas. We celebrate the 12 POUNDS of Christmas. Each work day in December, except Friday, one person in the office brings something for the rest of the office to snack on. Well today was my turn. I took my sister-in-law's chocolate fountain and tons of good food. I couldn't decide on healthy, salty or chocolaty type foods so I took a little of each. We had grapes, strawberries, bananas, pineapple, oranges and clementines from the fruit department. Then for the dessert department we had cinnamon bears, cream puffs, rice crispy treats, marshmallows, graham crackers, chocolate chip cookies and pretzels. Many of my co-workers commented on how nice it looked and how great it tasted so I took a photo and I thought I'd share.

But as you can see...if you eat like this for a month you'll gain 12 pounds just like I am on my way to achieving the 12 and probably then some. Today I actually skipped lunch because I ate too much junk food all morning long. Unfortunately, my boss is TDY to Virginia so he wasn't there to taste the goodness. But don't worry I texted him this picture just so he knew what he was missing out on!

Our Christmas Morning

Since things happened mostly on Christmas Eve we had a pretty quiet Christmas morning. Wyatt is still too young to be really excited about the whole thing but I think I managed to pick up the slack there. I asked Kayla if Santa had come at 6:30 am but she rolled over and said “no, he’ll be here in an hour. Go back to sleep.” So I did but right at 7:30 I got the dog out, woke up Wyatt and we gathered around the tree. Wyatt wasn’t fully awake so he was a little cranky. We gave him his 10 pack of Matchbox cars and that is all he needed. He could have cared less about anything else. We pretty much opened everything else for him because all he wanted to do was play with the cars. We gave him a jump-o-lene (an inflatable trampoline) and a pump. The pump didn’t work so I ended up blowing this 7-foot round tramp with my mouth. It took me about 25 minutes but I think Wyatt has enjoyed playing in it so far. Wyatt a lot more fun this year because he could make noises and somewhat understand what to do with the gifts and such. Next year it will be really fun because he will know all about Christmas and Santa.

Christmas Eve

This year most of our celebrating was on Christmas Eve. We had a party with the Anderson’s from 11 – 2:30 and then a party with the Farr’s from 5 – 9. We did the traditional dinner then we opened presents at both parties.
For Kayla’s side we went to the church where Jeff had a badminton, foosball, ping pong and basketball all available. It was actually quite nice because all of the grandkids could run free, throw the balls and make as much noise as they wanted without driving everybody nuts. At noon we at ham, rolls and several different salads, then it was time for the gifts. Things were great. We had purchased our own gift and then we gave it to Marc and Katherine to wrap and give back to us as our present. This why you get what you want and don’t have to burden somebody with the most frequently asked question “what should we get them?” Oh yeah we bought ourselves a food processor.
For my family we went to my mom and dad’s house and ate prime rib and sparkling potatoes. It is the same traditional meal that we every year. It was great. My grandparents joined us. After dinner we read out of the scriptures about the birth of Christ then the annual family newsletter. It was a tearful event just as in the years past. My mom does a great job of putting everybody’s yearly accomplishments and the presents received on the back of the news letter. Opening the presents was great. Mostly we just focused on Hadly and Wyatt because it is a new thing for them. Wyatt did manage to whack Hadly with a wooden puzzle right in the forehead. I think their favorite gifts were the child sized camping chairs that they could store their bottles in. It was another fun Christmas Eve party for both sides of our family.

Making Chocolate

So Kayla and I decided to make homemade chocolates to give away for Christmas this year. I went to Grandma Sherrod’s house and got her recipe. She gave me the one for fudge, almond joy and peanut butter cups. As she gave me the recipe she proceeded to tell me that it was for a double batch and it would make a lot of candy. Well even though I heard her I should have made just half of it because it made SOOOO much.
First off we decided to make the fudge. EASY as pie! But then we decided to make the peanut butter cups. First you have to make the peanut butter filling. This is where things went horribly arye. I had copied down the wrong kind of sugar. I wrote just sugar but it should have been powdered sugar. I called my grandma on Sunday morning to ask what I could do. She said to mix a little water with it to try and dissolve some of the sugar grit but as I did the peanut butter mixture lost its fluffiness. I ended up throwing all this mixture away and started over. I’ll just call this the practice run because it was edible but I just didn’t want people think that they were eating sand when finished. Overall, after all the mistakes, the peanut butter cups were my favorite, then the almond joys and fudge. It was cool to actually lean how to make candy but I don’t know if I will have the time or drive to do it again.

Sub for Santa

Every year my parents pick a family to help out or we go and find an Angel tree and donate to it. This year was no exception. We got together as a family and went shopping for a family who was in need. Of course like any other year the store was crowded but this year it was PARTICULLARY crowded. We all went in and found the things we wanted to buy for the person we were given and my dad stood in line about 4 different times just waiting for us to come and jump in with him. Afterward it was pretty good when we all went to eat at Crown Burger.
Once our bellies were full we went back to my parent’s house and started wrapping the presents. There were about a million. I was great to see them all especially when we left them all on the porch at the family’s house. It is better to give then receive.