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Sunday, December 19

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The first celebration was on Sunday, December 5 with most of the Myers family here. Other family members were invited to stop in for dessert. It was the day that suited the Myers – from Maine and Tennessee – but didn’t suit many of the others – the reason we had a second celebration.

This second one included those who were able to come from: Jeff and Chris’ family, a few locals from Mark and Diane’s family (they got to enjoy both celebrations), those who it suited from Jere and Kristen’s family and Roy and Deb, plus his mom and sister. As you read the other day, Barb just moved here from Florida and Mary was here to help her get settled in her new trailer home on Roy and Deb’s property.

We had a busy morning as we set up the charcuterie meal. Chris, Kristen and Deb were the brains for this, and because Kristen loves to do this, she organized it while the rest of us helped and provided food.

One of Jere’s first jobs was to arrange plates and dishes of things for the dessert table – candy and nuts. Others would bring cheesecake, cake and cookies for this table.

Cerwin and I only provided the house, mocha punch, coffee and water, but I did everything I could to help Kristen, Chris and Deb. In these photos I am stuffing pepper slices with a dried tomato cheese dip.

I enjoyed helping instead of being an organizer this year.

The kitchen was a busy place for food preparation. In this shot Chris is washing fruit and it looks like Kristen is slicing a pomegranate.

A supply table was set up in the garage to store food items before they were placed on the serving table. Jeff was preparing something when I took this shot.

Deb, Jere and Chris preparing to move Chris’ cheesecake to a serving dish.

Nathan arrived fairly early and got the job of beautifying his mom’s cheesecake with a torch.

Lunchtime (12:30 pm) is getting close – time to prepare the hot things for the serving table. Jere and Cerwin are putting turkey in a serving dish. Jeff may have been working on ham balls.

Kristen is putting the finishing touches to the charcuterie layout by adding spoons, forks, prongs and tongs.

Look at that! I think we could have fed the neighbors on our adjoining properties. 🙂

Ham balls (if you never heard of them, they are similar to meat balls, but are made of ground ham and pork.)

Mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese

Kristen showing Jeff where to put the turkey platter.

Jere made this in their smoker. Oh, yum!

Lunch is ready!

More in my next post.