The Stuff That Memories Are Made Of

Don't you love it when stuff happens at family gatherings that will keep you talking for years? Stuff that breaks you out in laughter just thinking about it? Well friends, those kind of memories were made last night at The Avery Family (early) Christmas. 

My bachelor nephew who lives in a gorgeous too-big-for-one-person-house hosted. Apparently he hasn't done much large scale hosting as he had no paper plates or plastic forks for the meal. This was discovered just as the food was about to hit the buffet table. His father ran to Dierbergs, our local grocery store and returned saying, "I'm on a first name basis with the bell ringer now." My nephew's best college and Air Force buddy, we'll call him Cooter, was there to celebrate with us for the first time. Cooter is married so he gets the whole hosting thing. He and I worked the hosting in the kitchen--cooking, washing dishes, etc. While we worked the kitchen, my nephew worked the crowd...but only after changing into his "sweatsedo." Yes people, those stylish velour sweatsuits of the 70's that mafia bosses wore are stylish again...just renamed. I'm now going to bring a hosting item to my nephew every time I visit his house (serving platters, martini shaker....). 

Cooter and I finally had all the food laid out, called the crowd to feast, when my father-in-law decides we should gather in a circle for a prayer, where he proceeds to be rout with emotion and profess his joy at our gathering . Kevin's aunt's eyes rolled in her head as she mouths "OMG." Only a little sister can get away with that!  I'm still trying to recover from the moment! What we are all now referring to as the "Whoville" move. King Ralph was wearing his Grinch t-shirt and the only thing to make that experience better would have been if D became Cindy Lou and we all would have started swaying while singing Welcome, welcome! Fah who rahmus! Welcome, welcome! Dah who dahmus Christmas Day is in our grasp! Priness A turned to her Prince Charming (first family Christmas with us nuts) and says "we never do this." Honestly when my father-in-law got emotional we all thought he was going to tell us he was dying. He's good, he's going to keep on living!

We did however fail to capture a whole family picture. I somehow think this will suffice. 

Next was the traditional gifting of people's random crap, guised as treasured to play the white elephant game. Hot ticket items this year: Three Stooges framed photo, decked out flamingo, dehumidifier, 1976 Republican Convention special edition bottle of whiskey, and the lunch box containing five one dollar bills. 

Then it was off for our annual bowling tournament. The alley selected near my nephew's house was a little ceedy. The Four Lanes Bar on the upper level was hopping like Soul Train. The slot machines in Trixie's Gaming Parlor weren't exactly making noise (behind the multi colored shear drapes). What left much to the imagination was the VIP Lounge. It's secret below ground access left the mind wondering what Trixie's may be up too? We all thought--if only we knew the speakeasy-esque secret knock we too could be VIPs. Despite all the ceediness we had a good time. I present to you this year's winning team 

and since there really is nothing normal about this bunch, they turned it into a photo shoot 

The crazy fun had us all flopping in our beds around 2am with tired weakened sounded voices saying: Happy Christmas!