Christmas in Nashville

I don't know if I mentioned this before, but we spent our Christmas in Nashville this year. We got up on Wednesday and drove straight through until 5 AM Thursday morning. We had a 2+ hour stop-over in Topeka, KS where Matt lost his wedding ring while playing with Loki and we had to run to Dick's Sporting Goods to buy a metal detector so that we could (eventually) find it.

After we got up on Thursday, Matt's step-mom made us breakfast and then we had to go get some annoying errands done (i.e. last-minute shopping). That night, we went to Matt's grandma's annual Christmas party and got to see all of the relatives we only see once every other year or so.

After the party, some of Matt's cousins came over to his dad's house. We got in the hot tub and pool and played with the dogs (Matt's dad and step-mom have a great black lab named Hogan who the pool was largely built for). Friday was another busy day with loads of wrapping, a little shopping, a memorial service for May and then a wonderful dinner at our favorite Nashville eatery with our good friend from college (and bridesmaid in our wedding!), Rachael. We hadn't seen her in a very long time and it was great.

Rather than brave the grocery store on Christmas Eve proper, my dad and I made a run to the Kroger at 2 am on Christmas Eve for provisions including the Southern Holiday Delicacy, boiled custard which is sold in the south like egg nog is sold everywhere else (though they have egg nog too).

Christmas Eve was spent cooking, wrapping, playing games, eating, and hanging out. We had a rousing game of Cranium and much fun.

Christmas morning we had a quich breakfast, and then many rounds of gift opening. Giving gifts is always my favorite part and three stand out in my mind as being paticularly well-received … we found an elephant cigarette dispenser for my sis in law that was pretty hilarious. I made all the ladies felt pencil/eyeglass cases for stocking stuffers (I'll post photos of those here later) and I made my lil sis an ornament featuring her delightful rabbits, Hoover and BunBun.

I got many many great gifts, far too many to mention here, but I'll just say that Matt and I were both spoiled within an inch of our lives. The rest of Christmas was spent in the traditional manner, hanging out and eating. I received three board games as presents and we got to play two of them: Settlers of Catan is a strategy game that's pretty hard to describe and a little bit complicated the first time out, and a LOT of fun. Apples to Apples deals you a hand of five nouns and you have to match these nouns to an adjective that's drawn from another deck. A judge decides which noun best matches the adjective … for example, I won the round where I put “cow pie” down for “juicy.” (I know … eew). Anyhoo, mad fun at that game … can't wait to play again.

Monday, early, we loaded a very tired Loki into his box and we all headed back to Colorado. Kelly and I watched Veronica Mars DVDs the whole way home.

How was everyone else's Christmas/other winter holiday??