Our Family Christmas 2022

    My oh my..... At first I didn't know if we were going to have a Christmas here at the house. We had a big bad cold front coming in with freezing rain and snow in around or after the Wednesday before Christmas. We had to dodge our appointments of all times on Tuesday and Thursday. Arkansas daughter is about 4 hours away in Arkansas ( my Grandson probably another hour) and I couldn't get any definite days out of her until the last minute. ( All this wishy washy stuff coming from a woman that grew up with 4X4 trucks and driving tractors and currently can drive bull dozers and back hoes and she was worried about the weather?! ) I  love a really traditional turkey dinner. I couldn't get anything definite from her ahead of time to even thaw out a turkey or anything like that. I just told her FINE THEN! We're just going to have black bean chili then! That way if they don't show up we aren't stuck with a lot of chow. They are always in a hurry too so with the weather trying to go bad on us I figured it would be really rushed.
    I had everything hot and ready to go with all the good toppings in some antique serving bowls that belonged to hubby's mom. She served a lot of meals in those serving bowls. They were not pretty at all but it's funny how family dishes just make everything taste wonderful. I had 2 kinds of cornbread. Nikki has a recipe that is more like a sweet cornbread cake I made into muffins. Hubby doesn't like bread that tastes sweet so I made him some plain regular cornbread. We had shredded cheese, fritos, sliced olives and probably a few other things in those bowls. After everyone had fun I washed the bowls and packed them up to send home with her.
     We all got some bowls filled up and sat down at the table. Allexcia sat off to the side to make room for Nikki's 2 and 3 yo's that were there. We were all doing good. Passing this and that. I asked my Grandson to please pass the olives. ( I like sliced olives in my chili) Austin said Nikki's son has them. I said ok when he's done pass them over to me please. Austin said.... no granny I mean HE HAS THEM......ok. He leaned back and I could see the little guy had a whole passel full on his plate and some of the wholes filled with little fingers and some running across the table to chase and a few I'm sure under the table for Frosty the dog to check out. LOL Nikki from across the table told him to take some out of the bowl and put them on his plate don't eat out of the bowl like at home in other words. So he did..... all of them! LOL His dad didn't like the idea he was only eating olives and told him he needs to get some chili. Nikki said no no that's ok.....he added some cheese and that was his meal. He was happy and not causing any problems and he loves olives. LOL She had the 2 year old girl in her lap so it's one of those things just pick your fights. Everyone is happy so it's good. LOL

      We all had full tummies. I didn't make desert because my daughter and her family don't like sweets much. I tell you that is why I call her my alien child. Sometimes I swear some alien made her because we are not a lot alike.LOL
     Xander played Santa Clause for us and everyone had a pile of fun in front of them. The stocking they were raiding because Santa always leaves some loot. Everyone got some fancy Gadiva Chocolate of different flavors. BOY! For people that don't do sweets they really really enjoyed that. I heard one of the boys had his gone before they made it home. Daughter had to make herself stop eating and just go to bed. LOL Hubby had a hard time stopping also. I didn't get any except a bite of hubby's for some reason.
        I had some pretty big heavy presents to pull and tote around. I got a real good one for the to little ones. It was way expensive. Hubby said absolutely not. Not because of the money but it has like 296 pieces! He said they don't need that mess! I told him they will like it I promise. Their house looks like a day care.

 
It was really funny watching their dad open it up. This thing was 3' high and at least 2' across and weighed 50#'s! If you look you can see him looking at it like Bonnie what the heck did you do?? LOL As you can see he's trying to figure it out.

 

                                                             See Stabilized ! LOL

Now what you see here is funny as can be. It started out his daddy was going to help the 3 year old stabilize whatever he was building. Of course big brother had already bonked little sister in the head and had a bruise showing up. LOL But look closer here.... You see those boy / men below? You are looking at a dad that is a pipeline welder / electrician, the boy on the left with glasses with a associate in nuclear energy and graduating this spring as a electrical engineer, and the boy in the back with his head down will be going to a Kansas collage for aeronautics! So of course they ALL had to help the little boy put together all this fun. LOL All us 3 different mamas from grandma to 2 younger generation mama's just sat back looked at each other and laughed at all the fun the "Boys" were having.

Now Nikki wakes up to this craziness in the morning! LOL

     We had all kinds of good fun. They made it back to Arkansas before the bad weather hit. It took me a couple of days to get the kitchen mess cleaned up but that's normal for me. I don't ask company to clean up. I don't ask folks over to work. We are here to have fun and visit. Oh they cleaned up all the wrapping mess pretty good and it was nice to have that done but kitchen stuff takes to long and too much time out of the fun and visiting. 

   I hope everyone had just as good a time this Christmas as we all did everywhere we went. I hope all our gatherings can be this fun in the future. Next holiday is Valentines day?? That's a lot of baking for me. Easter can be a fun time.... My Mama used to have Easter dinner for the family. I know one time we had a meal with 3 4X8 pieces of plywood and folks sitting and eating all around. Talk about a passing around mess! Whew! LOL We needed airport control towers. 

Love 

Ranchmama