The More the Merrier

It seems a little strange to post about Christmas now, after New Years. However, post-Christmas was a little crazy for me (I got a bad cold, worked, and then packed up and flew back to Montana) so this is the first opportunity I've really had to write about it.

After our crazy Thanksgiving as guests as my friend Melissa's house, I had offered to host Christmas dinner for her. At the end of the night she looked exhausted and overwhelmed, and we began talking about Christmas. I could feel her being a bit overwhelmed by the idea of repeating the dinner within a month for another holiday. I offered to host and told her she could be the guest. I honestly was first planning to only invite Melissa and her husband and our friend Jimmy. As the time to Christmas came closer, our dinner grew from 5 people to close to 12. Josh got a new troop into his shop who will be away from his wife for the next 8 months, and we decided to invite him over for dinner. Melissa met a young couple who had just arrived in Germany and didn't know anyone, so she invited them to join us. The week before Christmas two more young "kids" arrived and didn't know anyone, and I hated the idea of someone being young, away from family, and having nowhere to go for Christmas. What started out as my quiet little dinner turned into the more the merrier. I'm glad it did. Everyone needs somewhere to go for Christmas, and I'm glad we could offer that to people. I also see it as a way of paying back for all the times Josh was the guest at someone's house in holidays past.

We started our prep for our dinner a few weeks before Christmas as the commissary (grocery store on base) was likely to run out of certain items before Christmas (you think I'm exaggerating, but I'm not). We did some last minute shopping the week before Christmas to get some fresh things we were waiting on. Our menu included two 12 pound turkeys, one 8 pound ham, a 3 pound bag of potatoes, the supplies to make a double batch of green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, the makings for two pumpkin pies, an apple pie, and a gingerbread cheesecake, supplies for gravy, and a good supply of soda and beer. Melissa offered to make stuffing (I need a lesson in making her stuffing, seriously. She made homemade cornbread stuffing and it is amazing), mac and cheese (read my post about Thanksgiving. Melissa is southern and mac and cheese is a holiday must have food), and sweet potato casserole (I had never had that until Thanksgiving this year and it is awesome). We had quite the feast planned.

Christmas Eve was relaxing for us. We spent most of the day lazying around. We did some prep work for dinner the next day, but we mostly just hung around and watched movies. Josh had seasoned a whole chicken which he smoked on the BBQ for dinner. It was unexpected and delicious. Josh let me open one present on Christmas Eve (he picked out which present I could open). It was The Lion King on Blu-Ray, so we watched that before going to bed. On Christmas Day we were up by 6 am... more out of habit than excitement. We got up, started coffee, and opened presents. Josh and I thoroughly spoiled each other for our first "real" Christmas together, or first married Christmas together. He got me a fancy set of headphones, two Rachel Ray cookbooks, and an amber necklace I was eying at a Christmas market. I got him some beer glasses, an Ipod cover, and a metal detector (I'll explain the reason behind that at another time). We were also spoiled by our family. We had many Priority Mail flat rate boxes under our tree. I had been worried (since this was my first Christmas away from my family) that Josh and I would open our presents... and then just look at each other saying "Okay. Now what?" which would open the door to me feeling very lonely and homesick. Thankfully, we were very spoiled, had lots of new treasures to distract ourselves with, and had a lot of fun with each other. I honestly didn't feel homesick, which was a relief. After opening our presents and cleaning up the aftermath, we starting getting things together for our dinner.

I am impressed with Josh frequently, but for hosting Christmas I was extremely impressed. I had to work the whole week prior to the holiday, and I wasn't going to be there for a lot of the preparation. Josh did last minute shopping, cleaned the entire house (I'm not lying or exaggerating... he truly cleaning the whole house. It looked fantastic. Granted, I had threatened him with death if the house was a mess when I got home), and had the tables set up and decorated when I got home on the 23rd. I also am impressed at how well we work together as a team. When we got married it was a small event at my house with only 12 guests. Josh and I worked the whole day prior to getting married cleaning the house and making platters of snack food for our guests. There was no arguing, no stress (aside from pre-wedding jitters). We just work well together getting things done. It was the same way with Christmas dinner. We prepped what we could before-hand, and then we each took on our separate tasks for cooking. I gave Josh a turkey-fryer for his birthday, so he was in charge of frying the two turkeys (he was also in charge of all of the prep-work for the turkeys as I refuse to stick my hand inside of one to remove the parts). We had done enough prep work that all I had to do was heat up the ham, make the green bean casserole, and cook the potatoes. It was very simple.

Our guests all arrived around noon - even though we weren't planning to eat until 3ish. I'm thankful for our new big, wrap around couch as it worked well for all of our guests. Everyone snacked on the snack foods we had set out (meat, cheese, and crackers, chips and dip) and had some drinks while watching movies. We all ate, watched some more movies. Melissa helped me to fix up plates for people to take home with them... everyone left around 9 stuffed to the brim and with leftovers to boot. I was actually very happy to not have a ton of leftovers in my house. I couldn't believe we'd had people there for 9 hours. It didn't seem that long. But again, I'm glad we were able to provide a place for people to come and hang out and have a good dinner. This was probably the first of many military holiday dinners we will host... and that is fine by me.