To Grandfather's House We Go! Part 2

Where were we?  Oh, that's right!  In Part 1 of our story, Chris and I flew to Florida for Christmas, arriving in Orlando around dinnertime on Christmas Eve, where we were greeted very raucously by various and sundry family members.

On Christmas day, I woke up a bit earlier than Chris, due to my natural propensity to not sleep well the first night in a new place, and I killed time in the hotel bathroom surfing the internet and reading until he arose.  We showered, got ready, finished up some very last minute gift wrapping, and hopped in the car to head over to Granddad's house.

The living room,

all decorated up with the tree and

our airport signs from the night before.

Sign close-up!

We said good morning to everyone and jumped into the fray to help finishing readying our traditional holiday morning meal of breakfast casserole, homemade biscuits, and country ham.  As always, it was delicious, and after breakfast was cleared, Uncle Jim and Granddad handed out the materials for our next holiday tradition: holiday scratchers!  I can't honestly remember how long ago it started, but when I was growing up, one year after breakfast, we picked up our placemats to each find an envelope filled with scratch-off lottery tickets and a silver dollar.  Since that time, after breakfast is finished, each year, we sit around as a family, scratching off a few lottery tickets each to see how much we can win.  I believe I brought in around $4.00 this year, but someone normally ends up scoring around $20 or so.  Not too shabby!

Once scratchers were over, it was time to open presents!  We all relocated to the living room into our designated places while Emma distributed gifts.

Granddad settles in the chair

while Emma distributes

Aunt Kim, Uncle Jim, and Mom

The Sams-Ashley-Olsen kiddos

Uncle Jim photo-bomb!

As we were opening presents, all of the ladies in the room found we'd received the same present - a pair of pink fuzzy slippers - all from Mom!  We felt it pertinent to take pictures of this:

Ooh, fancy!

Among the many wonderful gifts I received was one that truly delighted my soul - my sweet Harry Styles returned to me from Leigh, bearing a Buddy the Elf Christmas sweater!  Leigh has a picture on her camera of the moment I opened this joyous gift, and my facial expression is nothing short of miraculously flabbergasted.  

Flamazing.

A shot of Jim with one of his favorite presents:

Yes, this is a garbage disposal.

Yes, this is what it means to be an adult.

After present time, we cleaned up the house and once more turned our attention to food.  Now, as frequent readers of the blog now, I'm an eater.  I love food, and I love to eat.  I've never made any apologies for this, and I never will.  I come from a family that loves food, and I celebrate that as well.  I also love to run and work out, and that helps me balance my love of food with a healthy weight that should hopefully keep me around on this planet for quite some time (provided I don't trip and fall off a cliff or something, which is likely, let's be honest).  Add all of the decorations and events PLUS all of the amazing food together, and it's no wonder Christmas is my favorite time of the year.

We'd all been having a great time sampling our normal feast of homemade cookies, cakes, pies, and candy, but at this point, Emma and I in particular (she may actually be my cousin, but she's essentially my twin sister in food consumption ability) turned our attention to a box of chocolates one of Mom's clients gave her that she graciously shared with the family.  Not only were they delicious and unique, but look at these things:

I mean, for reals.

They tasted just as good as they looked!

While we snacked, other family members set up the large table for game time.  Growing up, every holiday at my grandparents' house featured not only loving family and great food, but also all sorts of games.  Grandmom loved playing games and solving puzzles, and I always loved sharing this with her.  Sometimes, it would just be the two of us (if we were visiting during a non-holiday time), and other times, it would be the entire family, 8 or 10 of us gathered around the table playing in teams or taking turns, swapping in and out while some folks ran to get more snacks and others napped (or I read a book in the corner for awhile, recharging my introvert batteries).  We played everything - all sorts of board games and card games, but I remember Grandmom really loved Hugger Mugger (where she wiped the floor with us all on the jumble challenges) and Hand and Foot, a card game first introduced to us by Aunt Kim and her northern relations (I'm pretty sure).  Although Grandmom is no longer with us, our family still loves games, although our tastes now run rather counter to what hers were:

Yup, that's Cards Against Humanity.

I'm proud (?) to say that I won.

Eventually, game time was over, and Chris and I took a short trip with Jim and Leigh to check on Pavlov, hanging out with the cats at Uncle Jim and Aunt Kim's.  While we were there, we grabbed a few more things necessary for the rest of the evening, and then we hopped in the car to head back.  While we were gone, dinner preparations had started in earnest, and we were happy to jump right in and help however we could.  Dinner was delicious - all sorts of awesome things, like fried turkey, mac and cheese, asparagus, rolls (now known in our family's parlance as "Amy rolls," because they were one of the few things I would eat as a kid...if that kid had any idea of what I eat today, she'd be freaking horrified), and several other delights I can't recall right now.  Once we finished stuffing ourselves, we cleaned up and it was time for spoons!

Like many family traditions, including several I've mentioned in this very post, I don't recall how the spoon hanging started, but it quickly became a normal part of our holiday festivities (as I believe, over the strenuous initial objectives of Grandmom, who was horrified at the new talent her family had discovered and was exhibiting at her formal dining table on Christmas of all days.  I did mention she was a rather traditional Southern belle in a lot of ways, right?  Her curse word of choice was always an exasperated "Thunder!").  I think Jim and Leigh have more shots of this event, but here are the ones Mom and I were able to grab:

Leigh has a natural talent at this

As you can see, Chris is still working

on perfecting his form.

Also, check it - 

I've rediscovered that box of chocolates...

After all of this merriment, it was getting late, and we bid adieu to Jim and Leigh.  They were heading home to Safety Harbor as Leigh had appointments the next day that she wasn't able to miss, and since they still needed to pick up Pav, they had a long drive ahead.  We helped everyone clean up a bit more, and enjoyed one last nightcap from Ethan's choice selection of options:

Noms!

Later!

Amy