Lockwood Christmas....

We are back from our weekend and had a WONDERFUL time! I ate WAY too much.. but that is always the way it goes! I have to tell you, my family has some interesting traditions that we get very excited about at our get-together! Thought I would share a few with you:

The first is the JOB JAR. What is a job jar?? Well.... it all started years ago when yours truly was hating the whole 'girls do all the dishes..guys go watch football' thing. I mean, growing up the only girl with 4 brothers kept me striving for life to be 'fair'. (Or, at least unfair in my favor!) To this end, I suggested a 'job jar' where we would put all the jobs of the day into a jar and everyone would draw one. This way, the work was evenly distributed and you knew what you had to help with and then you were off the hook for the rest of the day. We throw in a few 'loafs' just to make it fun. (The first several years, in fact, I got a loaf and felt somewhat vindicated!) Here is the master list that we post where you fill in your name across from the job you drew...




Of course, the DREADED jobs are the washing and drying of the dinner dishes. The anticipation in the room can be felt as we all hold our breath when we draw our job..... will WE have to do the dinner dishes???? This year, my dear hubby got 'Wash Dinner Dishes' and my niece got 'Dry Dinner Dishes'. Poor things. We have tried to soften the blow by giving them the honor of signing the honorary aprons for those who pass this test. Here they are after they have successfully washed and dried all of the dinner dishes and signed their names on the aprons. (As you can see, last year I had to dry dinner dishes......)


It may all seem silly, but it is a fun way to spread the work of the day and have a little fun with it at the same time!!







This year the host and hostess were my younger brother Gary and his wife Colleen.... Thanks for having us all 26 of us in! A true act of love :-)









After the job jar, we all gather to open stocking stuffers. (Instead of exchanging gifts..we buy stocking stuffers for everyone.) This is followed by the first meal of the day; our traditional Christmas breakfast of Egg Dish; Frozen Fruit cup; Swedish Tea Ring and Ham.

We then fast for about an hour and put out the snacks.



After about 5 hours of snacking, we have our main meal of meatballs, lefse, potatoes, torsk, corn, etc.. etc..We sit down for the feast! (This is just 1 of three tables!)









We know where to sit by the cute little reindeer nametags...












My niece opened her gift which contained the Kitty Pi bed. We did get a few pictures of Cougar in it... mostly in attack mode! (I think he was trying to kill the fringe!!) I'm hoping he will someday realize that it is already dead and enjoy curling up in it for a nap!



Gave my mom her birthday clutch that I had made quite some time ago for her to take to her Red Hat Society meetings....

It is the pattern "The Clutch You'll Never Give Up' from the book One Skein. I used WOTA and Paton's Red.






Well, may share more in a further post. A Fun Fun Day. But always good to come home as well.


Oh, and Sumo was very happy to see us! (He had stayed home guarding the house!!) Brave dog!







Until Next Time....