Christmas at my Mother's

[Janet]

We had our Christmas gathering at my mother's house last night. We left the girls at home, but took Joey. I should have known better because it was so crowded, but he did good and everyone loved him, of course. There were 13 of us there.

We ate before we went to her house. She was having lunch meat sandwiches and ham salad. My older brother told me that my mom used hard boiled eggs left over from Thanksgiving to make the ham salad so we made sure we ate before we left. I checked on the Internet and some cookbooks I had, and hard boiled eggs in the shell should only be kept a week. She used them after a month.... She wasn't happy, but we didn't tell her why. She does this kind of stuff all the time. She'll even take a package of sausage, cut it in half to use and then just put the other half in the freezer without wrapping it at all. Just thinking about how she handles food makes my stomach roll, but I have to admit, she's never been sick from it that I know of. She's not a very good food handler.

We don't buy for each other in the family and the kids are all grown, so we don't buy for them either. We are mostly there so mom can give out her gifts and receive some from my brothers. She opens her gifts from us at our house. I think my husband got some money, my son got money and a shirt and I recieved the book by Robin McGraw.

We were only there for 90 minutes. Seems sad, but everyone opened their gifts and were ready to go. We left at 8:30 PM. It's just wayyyy to crowded to be able to enjoy yourself and some of us have to sit on the floor. I just can't do that much anymore for any length of time....kills my back. Man I hate getting old...LOL

Tonight we are going to the nursing home to eat supper with my mother-in-law and let her open her gifts from us. Then we will come home and just hang out for awhile before calling my Mom and telling her we're home and she can come out. She has spent the Christmas night with us for over 30 years. We'll all get up in the morning to open our presents. Sure am excited for my son to open his laptop. He will be soooooo surprised.