My mother-in-law mentioned that she was making fried chicken and potato salad for Christmas Eve dinner, so I of course said I would come. If there is something I love, it’s her fried chicken and potato salad. She also made ham and a honey glaze. And stuffed shells. I put honey glaze on my chicken.

My brother-in-law made figgy pudding. That was tasty.

My mother-in-law always has a heap of homemade Christmas cookies and the family fruitcake recipe is unbelievably tasty. And the goofy sugar/coconut/strawberry JellO crystal cookies are one of my favorites.

The Teenager says she likes when I come to family functions, because I liven them up a bit with my big mouth.

The kids opened presents– the eldest great-grandchild received a learn-to-tie-your-shoelaces wooden shoe (The Teenager received the same but in book form at that age) and “The Old Lady Who Swallowed The Fly” finger puppets (as The Teenager also did as a child, except the Teenager received a creepy old lady doll with a creepy gaping mouth). I tried to engage the whole family in a sing-along of There Was An Old Lady Who Swallowed The Fly, because all the children in the family, I believe even back to my husband and his siblings, were raised with that morbid song.

No one went for it.

If you don’t know the song, here’s a version on YouTube.

I’ll give you some nice holiday photos of the tree and The Teenager opening her exciting new clamps from her uncle, who always knows what she needs for her growing tool collection. And she also kept swapping out the baby Jesus in the manger for first a goose and then a turkey.

With our bellies bursting with cookies and figgy pudding– so yummy, I do love figs, we left Bethlehem to travel to Nazareth to visit one of my former Target colleagues who now works there. We exchanged some Christmas hugs. I put gas in the car. And The Teenager got a salted caramel hot chocolate.

This low-key holiday is working out perfectly.