It was madness!  It was chaotic! It was wonderful!

As usual we had a houseful for Christmas this year! Ourselves, plus two of our three children (with spouses), six of our eight grandchildren, one step-grandchild, three significant others, and one great-grandchild were all here for Christmas morning, along with my sister-in-law.

Not all of them actually stayed here in our house, since we don’t have that much extra room, but the ones who weren’t in our spare rooms had rented a house nearby.

We had seventeen people in our living room for present opening, five of them under the age of fifteen. We served brunch, which was provided mostly by my oldest daughter, and later dinner. We all contributed to dinner. I cooked the turkey, stuffing, mushroom casserole, and pumpkin bread. Older daughter contributed corn casserole and broccoli casserole; younger daughter made the orange sweet potato cups, gravy, and an elaborate black forest cake for my birthday. Rolls were cmpliments of my sister-in-law, and my second oldest grandson made a delicious cranberry-orange bread. We feasted.

With so many people milling around, opening gifts, eating, and drinking, it did get noisy and chaotic, but everyone was in good spirits, contributed to food prep or cleaning up, and helped out when needed.  I’m very blessed to have the family I do.