The Circle of Life: Christmas Traditions, Alive & Well

Before I get to the Christmas traditions we've experienced this week, let me tell you about something that happened one night this week. A very thoughtful couple from our Sunday School brought supper to us. I suppose they felt sorry for me, hobbling around on my bum knee and for Tom b/c I don't cook much right now. Anyway, they brought over a PILE of delicious food. Sandy was dressed to the nines, as usual, and Don was in work clothes - old jeans, tattered sweatshirt, well-worn baseball cap - you get the picture. Sandy & Don are always the first to respond to a need - Sandy with food and Don with manual labor. Don had just returned from a workday for someone in need. When he walked in, he said, "I'm all dirty; you don't want to hug me." I quickly responded, "Oh, I love dirty old men." Open mouth, insert foot. I immediately tried to get myself out of trouble by explaining how I so appreciate men who like to get their hands dirty by helping others. Well, Don also has a great sense of humor. He didn't let me by with that flimsy explanation. I have a feeling that my Sunday School Class will hear about this tomorrow morning.

On Thursday, I went to an annual gathering of good friends. This group (plus or minus a few) have gotten together every year for at least 15 years. This is not an exclusive group by any means. It's just one of those "let's do this again next year" kind of things. It's a group of ladies who either don't work anymore or work parttime. I think it may have begun years ago when we entertained a new minister's wife and I think that may have been the time a waitress spilled a tray of sweet tea drinks in the lap of pastor's wife. (Normally, we'd have all busted out in fits of laughter, but we didn't know the personality of our guest, so we sat in awkward silence for what seemed forever. The guest handled it nicely. We behaved ourselves nicely, too.)
This group may not see each other many times during the year, especially to chat incessantly. But we always know we have each other's back. We've all gone through trials in our lives when we've supported each other. Some in this group are presently facing serious trials. Since we're all Christians, we know for a fact that each of us is lifted in prayer during the good times and the bad times. That's so comforting. Here's the group that convened this week:

Thursday night the Ivester's and Tom & I met in Fountain Inn for our annual carriage ride. The weather was perfect. We didn't even need coats so there was no worry about Cady getting too cold. Great time had by all!

The Ivester's waiting for Papa Tom, who was held up at work.

On Friday I kept Brie most of the day because THANKFULLY Mark had two closings. Abby and Cady came and spent most of the day with us. It was fun to see my two G.G.'s together. (Pictures are at the end of this blog). While we were visiting, Tom and a friend put up decorative molding below the upper cabinets to hide our new undercabinet lighting. Lynn had a nail gun which made the job so much faster and easier. They finished in record time. However, Abby & I were in and out of the kitchen several times trying to heat bottles while stepping over and around the hose of the nail gun and those two working men. But I did not complain. The kitchen project is progressing very well.

Friday night was the annual Pie Bakeoff of the Rucker boys, Matt and my brother Jerry who was ably assisted by Abby. My kitchen quickly became a complete mess of mixers, blender, pots, pans, sugar, flour, butter, etc.

In this mess, you can see the new molding Tom added. We need to prime and paint.

Chad came in last for the pie bakeoff. He had told us he was making his famous blender pie, but that he also had a surprise. Here is Chad as he arrived.

We got so excited that he'd brought us doughnuts; but, no, it was his ingredients for his surprise dessert. Love the Krispy Kreme hat!

Here is the cooking gang: Abby, nutty Chad, Matt, Tom, Mark (he's insane or he's had too much sugar) and you can barely see my brother Jerry.

While everyone was busily cooking, I was in the den with the noncooks playing with Cady and Brie. All of a sudden, I heard Tom say, "Dadgummit!" I could tell in his tone of voice that something had gone terribly wrong. It became clear that the problem had nothing to do with cooking. Remember the new molding Tom & Lynn added to my cabinets? Look at the picture below.

See the nails coming up from the bottom?

They had miscalculated the length of nails they needed. Tom explained how they made the mistake which made sense to me but I can't explain it on my blog. At first, of course, I thought it was a hoot! I tried to stifle my laughter b/c Tom was not happy. Then I thought, knowing it was along the front and edges of my cabinets, "Oh, I hope it didn't go through my bottle of glue.". I immediately checked that cabinet and all was well. But upon closer inspection, I found a few items that got nailed down!

See the cinnamon? It won't move! It's nailed down! HAHA My paprika was nailed down, too. I also found a glass juice pitcher broken. So far, no other casualties!

So, try to picture this in your mind: my kitchen is complete chaos with all these tall, large men + Abby measuring, mixing, cooking and deciding who gets to use the oven first - all the while Tom is handsawing and hammering those crazy nails. I sat in the den and just died laughing at the noise! And the G.G.'s didn't care either. It was truly a night to remember.

But back to the Pie Bakeoff. Here is a list of the cooks and their creations. Chad made Paula Deen's Krispy Kreme Bread Pudding and Blender Pie. I was impressed with Chad's going outside his box and doing a Paula Deen WOW! Matt made a caramel pie. He used a double boiler and caramelized sweetened, condensed milk plus he made the Graham cracker crust from scratch. Impressive. Mark (this was his first year to participate) got a recipe off the internet b/c it sounded good but very simple. It was a Brown Sugar Pie. Honestly, it was just like a pecan pie without the pecans. It was very good. Tom made his mom's Buttermilk Pie. Now, I know it sounds yucky and I hate buttermilk, but this is one of my favorite pies. And it was delicious. Jerry and Abby made two pies: coconut and chocolate. Not just plain pies, they made them from scratch and the meringue was Food Network worthy. Here is a picture of their pies b/c they were the "prettiest" (and also great!)

OCD Joy put sticky notes to indicate the pies. Look at that meringue! And ya'll thought our guys (+Abby) were baking Mrs. Smith's pies!

After the pie baking, we all piled into cars and drove around to see Christmas lights. This year Abby & Matt told us about a house near their neighborhood. When you arrive, there is a sign telling you to turn your car radio to a particular station. Then you just sit back and listen to the music and watch the house lights flick on and off to the beat of different songs. It was amazing! Loved it. We always take the same routes to see lights. Then we came back to eat pies.

Here is our gang eating pies (Jerry, Mark, Chad, Abby, Jane, Matt & Andrea)

Michelle couldn't come b/c she was gone for the evening. Missed you, ShellBell!

I agree with Abby that last night was absolutely the most fun we've had in a very long time. I couldn't find my walkie talkies (think I left them at the lake) so we talked via cell phones. We sang Christmas carols as we drove around. We even harmonized over the cell phones. From start to finish my cell phone went from 4 bars to none!

Now I'll just add some pictures of my G.G.'s from yesterday.