Christmas Festivities

After my daughter graduated and moved back home with her 4 year accumulation of stuff and her cat, Christmas came and went. 
The Thursday before Christmas was the running group yearly Christmas light run.  We run through two subdivisions near the running store to see all of the lights.  After the run we have food.   We donned Christmas lights, silly sweaters and hats to go for a run! 

Runners preparing for the Christmas light run

Lights on my hat and a beautiful Christmas sweater vest

I made a crock pot of chili and I made cookies in the shapes of a running shoe and a Christmas light bulb but I never took any pictures of the cookies.
My daughter and I did a bunch of baking the day before this party.  We also made the normal Christmas cookie shaped cookies along with the running cookies.  My daughter found a recipe that she wanted to try; she even bought all the ingredients for them.  They turned out pretty good -

Melting snowman cookies!

The Sunday before Christmas, my family had our annual Christmas get together with extended family.  This year we went to my cousin's house in Ohio.  I had found a recipe that I wanted to try but wasn't sure if I wanted to put the effort into it.  I'm pretty good at baking but I don't really do anything fancy.  It was for a chocolate loaf cake with a Christmas tree inside of it.  When sliced, the slices show the tree.  Here's how it turned out:

Yes, I really did make this!

I was afraid to cut it because I didn't think mine would turn out but it did!  The center is made from a pound cake.  The recipe calls for a frozen pound cake but my daughter thought that I should make the pound cake that I made for strawberry shortcake back in the summer.  The pound cake is sliced and the tree shapes cut from the slices, batter is put in the bottom of the cake pan and the slices of pound cake stood up in a line touching each other down the middle of the pan.  The rest of the cake batter is poured over the trees and it's baked.  Very complicated for me!!  I'm glad it turned out!  

Christmas Eve was church.  I love the Christmas Eve church service.  It is what Christmas is all about to me. 
 
 My family was originally going to get together on Christmas day at my sister's house but then plans changed because my sister from Maryland flew back on Christmas afternoon and being at my house is closer to the airport so she could leave later.  Sooooooo, because of that, we had to find ways to stash all of my daughter's stuff throughout the house so the place didn't look like a hoarder house!   My sister from California was here too!  All four of us were in the same place at the same time!

The Miller Girls

I think that's about it for Christmas.  I have been doing my long runs on Saturdays but haven't been doing very much running during the week.  I ran 10 miles last Saturday.  My run was slow and difficult which I think has something to do with three days of eating lots of candy and cookies!  I guess it's all my fault!  Saturday marked three weeks until the Key West Half Marathon!  Next week I'll run 12, the week after I'll run 8 and then it's time to go to Key West!!  Hard to believe it's getting so close! 
I still don't know where I'm running on New Years Eve.  I can't find any info on the 5K in Jackson and nobody I ask knows anything.  There is one in Ann Arbor that starts at midnight so I may go to that one. 
I'm behind on my log book so I'm not sure how many miles I'll have for the year.  My New Year's resolution was to keep up with the log book.  Oops!  I think I'll have to make the same resolution for 2014! 

Runner Nerd
survived Christmas once again

A house full of relatives

Last Sunday (23rd)  was my family get together.  All the years I was growing up and then many years of my adult life we had a family Christmas get together at my Grandmother's house every year until the time came that my Grandmother wasn't able to live in her home anymore.  My Grandmother has been gone for 11 years now but we still get together every year with the relatives.  Grandma started a couple of traditions many years ago because she felt that we were too wasteful and frivolous and too much money was spent with Christmas gifts.  She had us do a grab bag!  Everybody brought a gift that could be for anyone and they went into a big bag and everyone grabbed one.  Grandma did not allow any trading of gifts!  The other thing was that she gave everyone a brown paper grocery bag and filled it with very practical, useful things such as food items, toothpaste, thread, even toilet paper!!  All were things she had collected over the year when they were on a really good sale or clearance at the store.  We still carry on those traditions, although, we now allow trading of grab bag gifts!  Everyone still gets a brown bag but we all contribute to the brown bags now.  Grandma called it "Crazy Christmas" and that is what we still call our gathering every year!
I haven't hosted Crazy Christmas in a long time so this year I wanted to host.  My sisters and I were talking about it during our sister vacation in August and I committed to hosting it then.  I figured that I'd be graduated and would have all the time in the world to get ready.  I might have had a lot of time but I had 2 years of full time college and no housework to undo!  I threw out old junk mail that I won't admit how old it was!  I also cleaned out my large pantry; again, I won't disclose some of the expiration dates I threw out!  My house is cleaner than it has been in a very long time!    
I wanted to have a really nice meal so I first suggested that I'd like to have prime rib but my sister said that beef tenderloin is better.  I don't cook so I was asking her if it would be hard to cook and my brother in law (who knows that I am not known for my cooking) said he'd help me with it.  I ordered the meat from a nearby meat market, picked it up Saturday and took it to my brother in law; he cooked it at his house and brought it to my house.  It was really good! 
We ate and then proceeded with the grab bag festivities!!  I got a garlic keeper and garlic chopper.  Grab bag gifts can range from some really good things to some really silly things.  Then came the brown bags!  Then we ate desserts! 

2 extra tables set up to accommodate relatives, kitchen island overflowing with food!

relatives everywhere you look! (ignore the awful looking coat closet that has never had the doors put on)

 

 

table in the living room

At the end of the day I was exhausted.  It took 3 loads in the dishwasher to do all the dishes.  I started the first right away when dinner was finished, my daughter and sister so nicely unloaded it and started another when it was done and I started the last one right after everyone left. 
After everyone was gone I did what any sane person does - I went shopping!  I had a few things to get and I was not going to go to town on Christmas Eve.  Around here, the last few days before Christmas Eve many stores are open very late and some are even open 24 hrs for a couple of days and then they close early on Christmas Eve. 
It was a great day!  I got to see my relatives and my house is clean!!

Runner Nerd
Christmas party hostess