Wednesday, December 21, 2005
Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas to you and yours! I've been extremely busy these past few weeks, and I'm really just getting started. My house is officially decorated for Christmas now. We have a total of eight trees set up. My last tree was very special, because it uses some decorations given to us by our daughter-in-law Beth and son Jason (and lovely children Garrett and Hannah, of course!). She found us a set of casino decorations. The tree skirt is a roulette wheel. A "7" tops the tree, and there are poker chips, slot machines, dice, and the traditional symbols of slot machines, fruit (cherries, lemons, oranges, watermelons, and grapes) and the BAR symbols. I also set up my train set display. We have two sets of tracks, a Christmas track (stationary) that has a Christmas tree with Christmas village and a full train set that runs. The locomotive even blows smoke out of it, very cool!
The big event at hand will be our Christmas banquet. We have room for 32 people in our banquet area near the indoor pool. My gold decorated 12 ft. tree is on the diving board side of the pool. The table is decorated with various centerpieces, and we use fine china and silver for the banquet. The only changes with the menu are that we will have several people bringing food. In the past, Miss Odessa took an entire week off to clean and cook for banquet preparations. I'm having to do it AND work 45 hours a week. It's been easier than I thought though. I'm just about finished. Last night, I started washing the china and silver. I'm glad that it's all dishwasher-safe. Just a couple of more dishwasher loads and I'll have it all done.
The cooking will not be as hard either, because we have everyone coming over to make some sort of dish. We're providing ham, turkey, and roast beef and also the shrimp cocktail that starts out the meal at each place setting. I also have been given the job of making the custard this year. I tried out Miss Odessa's custard recipe at Thanksgiving and it was a hit. We like to add bananas and vanilla wafers to our custard.
It will be tough to be at the banquet with Miss Odessa not being there this year. I think that she will be proud that we are carrying on her Christmas legacy. I've been avoiding the song "Blue Christmas" this month, because it says so much about my feelings.
The big event at hand will be our Christmas banquet. We have room for 32 people in our banquet area near the indoor pool. My gold decorated 12 ft. tree is on the diving board side of the pool. The table is decorated with various centerpieces, and we use fine china and silver for the banquet. The only changes with the menu are that we will have several people bringing food. In the past, Miss Odessa took an entire week off to clean and cook for banquet preparations. I'm having to do it AND work 45 hours a week. It's been easier than I thought though. I'm just about finished. Last night, I started washing the china and silver. I'm glad that it's all dishwasher-safe. Just a couple of more dishwasher loads and I'll have it all done.
The cooking will not be as hard either, because we have everyone coming over to make some sort of dish. We're providing ham, turkey, and roast beef and also the shrimp cocktail that starts out the meal at each place setting. I also have been given the job of making the custard this year. I tried out Miss Odessa's custard recipe at Thanksgiving and it was a hit. We like to add bananas and vanilla wafers to our custard.
It will be tough to be at the banquet with Miss Odessa not being there this year. I think that she will be proud that we are carrying on her Christmas legacy. I've been avoiding the song "Blue Christmas" this month, because it says so much about my feelings.
I'll have a Blue Christmas without you I'll be so blue thinking about you Decorations of red on a green Christmas tree Won't be the same dear, if you're not here with me I'll have a Blue Christmas that's certain And when that blue heartache starts hurtin' You'll be doin' all right, with your Christmas of white, But I'll have a blue, blue Christmas
We'll miss our dear Odessa and the memories she left us with.
Merry Christmas to all! Enjoy your loved ones while you can...because after that all you have is your memories!
