Above is a photo of great-granddaughter Kay’Lee who served as Santa Christmas Eve and passed out the gifts at the Christmas Eve get-together at our house. Mainly it’s my son’s crew, his wife and two sons (Kay’Lee belongs to the youngest)and son’s daughter, but we also have our youngest daughter’s son who lives with us and of course, hubby and I.

We had a Honey-Baked Ham, green bean casserole, cheesed broccoli, and buttered baby red potatoes. Granddaughter made a fancy cake and we had lots of cookies.

At 3:30 a.m. Christmas morning, I heard someone in the house, no, not Santa Claus, but it was my son. He came to help me get the 20 pound turkey out of the refrigerator and into the oven. (Hubby just had cataract surgery and was told not to lean over and pick up heavy stuff so he got to sleep through this.) Once the turkey was tucked into the oven and on it’s way to being cooked, both son and I went back to our own beds.

Daughters who live in Southern California gave me a fancy coffee maker, so daughter-in-law and I enjoyed cups of coffee while we started on our contribution to the church’s Christmas dinner. We made candied yams, lots of stuffing, and two big pans of green bean casserole. The turkey came out looking beautiful, but together, daughter-in-law and I sliced it up and put it in a big roaster. At 11, with son’s help we hauled it over to the church.

By noon all sorts of roasters and crock pots had arrived filled with mashed potatoes, lots more turkey, ham, yams, gravy, etc., green salad and broccoli salad and the biggest array of desserts including apple and pumpkin pies, assorted fruits, brownies and fudge.

Those of us who intended to help serve went ahead and ate. Yummy! More people trickled in and ate and the fellowship hall began to fill. We fed lots and lots of folks, but mostly our own church family, despite the fact posters had been put up all over town, plus a big sign on the highway.

More than a dozen take-out dinners were delivered to seniors and handicapped folks. (We have a low-income apartment complex for same in town.)

We had so much food left-over, guess what we did? Sunday, after church, we had Christmas dinner all over again. Nearly everyone who attended, many who hadn’t been there on Christmas, got to enjoy the fruits of our labor.

Will we do it again next year? I have no idea, but it really was a fun way to spend Christmas.

From 12/25/2010 through 01/02/2011, readers can take 20% off all Mundania Press, LLC ebook and print titles purchased directly from the Mundania Press website. At checkout, use discount code: SANTA. All my Deputy Tempe Crabtree mysteries are available at Mundania. http://www.mundania.com

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Happy New Year!

Marilyn