Hey y'all. I know I just did a Christmas post the other day, but I felt the need to do another one. I've been getting into the Christmas spirit lately haha. So this post today will be about another one of my Christmas traditions: The women's Christmas dinner at church.
Every year on the Saturday after the church season Advent begins, my church holds a dinner for the ladies of the church, in which we ladies get to chill and the men serve us. It's so much fun, I enjoy the heck out of it every year. It's always held from 6-9 p.m. every time. The ladies are asked to bring a $5 gift to exchange, and also a can of food to go to our local homeless shelter. I usually take a bag of canned food, I don't feel right taking only one can when there's so many hungry people out there & I have plenty of food in my kitchen. I feel the need to share with those less fortunate than myself & my family.
When we walk into the front door of the church for dinner there's a check-in table, where the men check our names off the list & take our coats, exchange gifts & cans of food. When they take our gifts to be put with the others, they tape a little ticket on them & give us a ticket of our own at the end of dinner. After the check-in process, the men escort us into the Fellowship Hall where the dinner will be held. For the beginning of the dinner we start off with a salad that is waiting on the tables & some appetizers that we get ourselves. They have a table set up at the front of the Fellowship Hall where there's fruits & veggies, and also egg nog & apple cider. Then, for the main course, we have chicken cordon bleu, which is chicken stuffed with ham and cheese. It's soooooo good! And with it we have this really yummy rice thing & green beans (<--- my favorite veggie). And for dessert they bring around trays of different cakes & other yummy stuffs. I always get a piece of cake & a chocolate eclair. I can't quite remember the specifics of the desserts, just that it's cake and yummy stuffs haha.
Every year Nana and I sit with our friend Melody & her mom Anita. Melody is blind & her mom can hardly see at all, and at first glance you wouldn't be able to tell Melody is blind! She does very well on her own, but her husband still helps her out a lot. And I remember every year she always gets a slice of cheesecake for dessert, haha. Weird, that just randomly popped into my head lol. The Fellowship Hall always looks so beautiful, because there's a lady at church, named Kay, that decorates it so beautifully every year. She hangs these giant lighted Christmas balls from the ceiling & also decorates the tables with a gift in the middle & some poinsettia themed... other stuffs. Haha. At the end of the dinner, everyone at each table chooses a number between 1-10, then after everyone has a number, Kay calls out a random number & whoever has that same number gets to keep the gift in the center of the table. I got it one year :) It was just some hand soap in the box, but it was still cool.
Then, I believe at the end of dinner, or near the end, we have a quartet come in and sing. They sing traditional Christmas carols so wonderfully. Last year they gave out lyrics sheets so we could sing along to a few of the songs. It was awesome because my friend Meg and I sang the first verse of "Silent Night" in German. We had to sing it in German on Christmas Eve, so we figured we'd get in some more practice haha. After the quartet finishes up, we have the gift raffle. The men come around to all the tables & give each lady a ticket. Then, they start picking up gifts from the gift table and calling off the numbers from the tickets that are taped on them. I'm always sitting on the edge of my seat while waiting for my number to be called haha. The anticipation is so much fun lol. Some of the ladies get really into it, they start hootin' and hollerin' when their number is called. And Melody always yells "BINGO!" when they call her number :)
After all is said and done, we gather up our things and head home. It's always such a wonderful and very fun evening. I look forward to it every year. I love it :) It just wouldn't be the same without it...
Friday, December 3, 2010
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Christmas
But other than that I think Christmas is such a wonderful holiday, because you get to spend time with your family and it's just a lot of fun. But, these days I feel like people have forgotten the real meaning of Christmas: Celebrating Jesus' birth! That's why we give gifts to one another, and have family dinners together, because we're celebrating the birth of Jesus. But it seems like everyone has gotten so caught up with all the gift-giving and stuff that they've forgotten the reason they're doing that in the first place! Lots of people seriously need to be reminded of that reason too.
Every year for Christmas, my immediate family has a little get-together at my house & at Nana's (Grandma) house. On Christmas Eve, Nana, Jeffery, my Mom & I have a little dinner at Nana's. I remember one year for our Christmas dinner we had pizza, hot wings & brownies! I don't know what got into us that year, we just wanted to be different I reckon. That's why I love my family so much, cause we ain't afraid to be different! Haha. Then we go to church for the 7:30 p.m. Christmas Eve service (the one I dance at every year). After that we just come home and go to bed. Well, my mom stays up a little later because that's when she wraps my presents. She never puts any of my presents under the Christmas tree until Christmas Eve, because she's afraid I'll secretly open them to see what they are lol. My brother did that when he was little, that's why. But I'm not like him! I would never do that! Lol.
Anyway, on Christmas morning Nana & Jeffery come over to my house (It's not that far to travel, they live right next door to me!) and we open presents together :) I usually get up around 8 everyday, so I'm trapped in my room until my mom gets up, cause she likes to be there when I go see what Santa left for me haha :) Then, we go to Nana's house to open presents over there. And it's so cool because we have matching Christmas trees. We both have fake white ones. We never get real ones because we don't like to kill the perfectly good trees. Just let them stay outside in the forest, we can use fake ones lol. And it's so much easier too because you don't have to worry about watering them or anything. But you do still have to clean up some stray "needles" from the fake trees. I remember one year we had this really big box left over from a present, and I loved that box! I stayed in that box all day long haha. That was the year I got my portable DVD player & the "High School Musical" DVD, so I stayed in my big box & watched my DVD all day lol. And last year I was sick on Christmas :( I didn't let it stop me from having fun and enjoying the day, but I still hated the fact that I was sick. The medicine I had made me really sleepy, so I couldn't take it until after all the hoopla had settled down. But once I did take it, I was out like a light! But I still really enjoyed the day and had alot of fun :)
Every year is always different with my family, I never know what the heck is gonna happen! But I think that's what makes it so awesome. We have our traditions that we do every year, & then we have those crazy random moments that add to the awesomeness of it. I know lots of families get all dressed up and are on their best behavior, but with my family, you're lucky to get us half dressed and to keep our mouths shut! We are a very... vocal family haha. Very loud and boisterous, but still fun. And I wouldn't have it any other way :) <3
So tell me, what are your family holiday traditions? Do you have any at all? What are they? I'd love to hear them! Send them to me on Twitter to @Samikat08 and include the hastag #SamiSayzHolidays so I'll know what the heck you are talking about! Hahaha :)
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