Christmas in September...

We had such a great time last night at my mom's house celebrating the September birthdays! We sat out in the backyard and enjoyed the cooler weather. My Uncle Bill was the BBQ champ, BBQing chicken, ribs, halibut, and some veggie kabobs. There was fruit and chips and salsa for appetizers and apple pie for dessert.

We always have a great time no matter what, but it's funny how each gathering develops its own personality. Last night's party kind of turned into a little meeting, deciding when and where the next few family gatherings will be. We are entering into the holiday season very soon--it will be here in no time--so we had to discuss these things.

Conclusions:

1. October birthday will be done on October 10th at Ruben/Alicia/Dov/Ari's house

2. Thanksgiving will be celebrated on the DAY AFTER Thanksgiving so that Dov and Laura can attend, at Bill & Nene's house

3. And the biggie....Christmas Eve. For the FIRST time in my lifetime, we will not be celebrating Christmas Eve at my grandparents' house. Last year, despite the fact that my grandpa passed in March and my grandma passed in July, we still did Christmas Eve at their house. But now, the house is being dismantled room by room (my mom goes every week with the cleaning lady and they work there for hours.) There's no furniture left and things are set out and labeled on the floor of every room.

So....where to have Christmas Eve now?

The vote was to have at MY HOUSE.

Even though my house isn't big, it has a very laid out floor plan that is great for parties. It is also centrally located. My mom will do the turkey and pumpkin pies and the rest of the family will bring different foods for the dinner, but I'm the "house committee."

This is very momentous, having Christmas Eve at another house, because it is the only occasion that has ALWAYS been done at the grandparents'. I'm feeling the mantle of responsibility already!

Something else we talked about was Christmas Lists. In my family we draw names and buy for only certain people. We've done this for about 12 years and I've always been the person in charge of organizing who buys for who, the lists, and distributing the lists to the Santas. Last year I discovered Wordpress.com, another blog site like Blogger. It's a little more "business-like" and not one I would like to use for my personal blog, but for the Christmas lists it is ideal because you can have multiple pages for the blog. So, each person emails me their wish list items and I post them on their personal page. Click HERE to see last year's.

And this morning I spent about 2 hours setting up the one for this year, HERE. With the websites, there is a lot to do in the beginning, but in the long run it saves a lot of time and trouble for me, the official family elf.

And I still need to draw names and contact everyone today...better get busy!