Surrounded-by-boys: It's a Christmas Tradition

Monday, December 6, 2010

It's a Christmas Tradition

Every year for about the last 7 or 8 years, we've hosted a dinner party for a few of our friends. It's really a great time and we know this is the one time each year that we'll all take the time out of our schedules to unwind and just enjoy each others company.

Brittany, Scarlett, Mandi, and me

Dinner table set with my Christmas china and decorated!

My side table decoration. This is probably one of my favorite Christmas decorations! It's a white plate with "Let Heaven and Nature Sing" on it and the plate has a thin gold trim, which matches my china. I got the plate at a Cracker Barrell in Georgia last year, but I've seen it locally as well.

Centerpieces I made for the dinner table

Did I mention we do NOT bring kids? OKay, okay there was ONE exception. One year, we did bring our youngest, but only because he was about 5 days old. And maybe we didn't bring him and instead left him with my mother-in-law? I can't remember? OH my.

Scarlett and Brittany

Mandi writing down our table-talk questions

Paul and Michael discussing strategy

Anyhow, we always share in the preparation of the meal. For example, one couple takes care of the meat, one couple will do a veggie and dessert, so on and so forth. We've taken great strides to never duplicate a meal and we stay far, far away from ham and turkey since so many of us eat that often between Thanksgiving and Christmas. This year, our meal was steak and shrimp, twice baked potatoes, green beans with almonds, garlic bread, caesar salad, and of course, we had 2 delicious desserts! Don't let that fool ya--we also had 2 different yummy appetizers! We LOVE to eat!

Pulling the toasted bread out of the oven for one of our appetizers!

During dinner, we usually play some sort of "game" where we go around the table and tell our favorite Christmas memory, or the best gift received/given, Christmas traditions, etc. With this crowd, you're lucky to get a word in edgewise, and at one point last night, I think I counted about 5 different conversations going on at the same time!

In years past, we've drawn names and bought for each other, then we moved to only buying for the kids, and now we've moved to each couple bringing 2 ornaments and we draw numbers and pick ornaments so that each couple goes home with 2 ornaments. It's really neat and each of us look forward to picking a new ornament for our tree!