Christmas in February!

This past weekend we celebrated Christmas with the Gustafson side of our family. Yes, February 3, 2006 was our Christmas dinner and gift opening for 2005! It was the first weekend that everyone in Susan's family could get together, so we scheduled it and hosted it. We even left up our Christmas decorations (minimal though they were) so things would still look Christmas-y around here.

Susan's dad Roger from Dickinson, ND; Susan's brother Jerrett, his wife Cheryl, and their son Arron from Mandan, ND; and Susan's sister Cassie and her fiance Nick from Fargo, ND all drove to East Grand Forks on Friday in time for us to have supper together. Arron and the girls sat at the card table in the kitchen while the adults all squeezed together at the kitchen table. If you haven't been in our kitchen or our postage stamp-sized house, you won't realize what a trick it is to seat 11 at one time in the same room for a meal. Yeah, we don't generally host guests for meals unless the weather is nice enough (read: "summer") for us to use our spacious enclosed sun room. Good thing we like our family and don't mind crowding together.

Susan made manicotti, Greek chicken salad, garlic toast, and steamed asparagus for supper and served vanilla bean cheesecake with white chocolate mousse and raspberries for dessert--yum, yum, yum!! Afterward, we crammed into the living room and opened gifts. The girls received more than they needed, and everyone got very nice things from one another. Afterward, Jerrett and Cheryl retired to Suzanna's bed, Arron slept in Abigail's bed, Roger used Hillary's bed, and the girls camped out in sleeping bags on the living room floor upstairs. Cassie and Nick wisely exited for a hotel room in downtown Grand Forks, ND.

The next day, after a huge mid-morning breakfast of French toast, sausage, scrambled eggs, fruit salad, orange juice, and coffee (again, compliments of Susan), Nick and I took the girls swimming at Cassie and Nick's hotel while Roger, Jerrett, and Arron shopped at Cabela's and Cassie took Susan and Cheryl shopping for bridesmaid dresses for her upcoming wedding (in May). Everyone but Roger left for their homes by early afternoon. The girls had a birthday party to attend, so Susan and I took Roger out to Paulo's, a Mexican restaurant in downtown East Grand Forks, for a mid-afternoon dinner.

Roger stayed overnight Saturday, as well, and left early this morning to return to Dickinson. We don't see any of our relatives often enough, so we appreciate the time we do get with them, however rare or brief.