Every year like clock work, my brother-in-law Todd (a.k.a Griswald), starts hanging all 30,000 plus christmas lights up at his house the day after Halloween. It takes him every Wednesday up until Thanksgiving to get them all up! Can't say that I would ever be that dedicated, but the final product always seems so worth it. So, in honor of Todd and all his hard work, we always have a "Lighting Ceremony" to help bring in the Christmas Season. This always takes place the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and so our pigging out starts the day before. We always have an amazing appetizer night with every delicious appetizer you can imagine. I LOVE appetizers and so it is always my favorite! After stuffing ourselves we always sit around Todd's VERY LARGE tree and fill out his yearly Trivia card, with questions such as...how many lights are on the pine tree in the front yard?, or how many candycanes are there?, or how many extension cords did I have to use this year?, and so on. Whoever gets the most correct is the proud winner of his new and updated Christmas CD, containing all of his favorites of that year. We then all head outside to the front yard to whitness the turning on of the lights. Keep in mind he has speakers in his yard just blaring his Christmas "theme song". Every year I have to laugh as I look around and see us all standing in the front yard whitnessing the "Lighting Ceremony"...it is quite the site! This year I think we counted that there were 55 of us there! Luckily it was great weather and so we all hung outside admiring all the lights for awhile and then headed back inside to watch the tradional 'Family Man'. It is our absolute favorite and we watch it every year at the ceremony. This year there were so many of us that half of us had to watch it upstairs and the other half down. All I know is that good times were had by all!!!
Todd reading out his answers from the Trivia Game.
His fans who have traveled far and wide to attend the ceremony.
Our cute cousins visiting from Oregon who won the farthest traveler award. (Brianna, Nicole, Morgan and Kimberly)
All the yummy appetizers! Mmm...
Shan busy in the kitchen like always!
Me enjoying all the beautiful lights with Sawyer!
My sister Shan and her hubby Griswald...the man who made this all possible! Thanks Todd! We love your enthusiastic Christmas spirit and for making all the family parties happen! You are the best!
4 comments:
Dito - I love our family and the crazy traditions! Thanks Todd!
That really looks like a fun tradition. I think I would love our house to have that many lights, but I don't know if Mike would go along with that.
I will probably never be that dedicated either but I always love seeing the results of people who are! It looks like you had great eats and fun peeps to hang out with too!
Cute bio of the holiday. I think I might have to replace it with my attempt to describe the events! It really is SO fun. Todd and Shan read it and thought it was really a great post!
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