Meal Ticket

After hosting Christmas for both families this year, my father-in-law challenged me to detail just how many meals I served up. We had people coming and going over a good five day period. At our most “populous” we had 13 people around the table. Thank goodness it came with two leaves. We had to turn the table diagonal across the room to fit it. Pops, this is for you.

 

Breakfast:

One quiche, one giant potato omelet, two pounds of bacon, two pounds of sausage, 30 muffins, 18 bagels, 6 donuts, 18 biscuits, rivers of juice, and pots and pots of coffee fed a total of 47 people.

Lunch:

Pounds of cold cuts, chicken salad, and piles of leftovers (see the dinner list for details) fed a total of 50 people.

Dinner:

A lasagna capable of feeding 20 people, antipasti salad, loaves of bread, a 14lb turkey, gravy, green beans, stuffed mushrooms, sweet potato casserole, cranberry, homemade applesauce, stuffing, six homemade pizzas, coleslaw, and beef stew fed a total of 46 people.

Dessert:

Pecan pie, 24 cream puffs (think éclairs, but round), peanut butter swirl bars, chocolate cringles, white Christmas cookies (also known as Mexican wedding cookies), and banana cream pie, all made from scratch, also fed a total of 46 people.

That’s a grand total of 189 plates of food. This was only possible with the generous use of my neighbor Stefanie’s extra refrigerator while she was away. Stefanie, you rock.

Other fun Christmas numbers:

• Josh left the casino $5 up. I left $65 down. Nothing says Christmas like getting Dover Downs to open a blackjack table for the exclusive use of your slightly to extremely drunk family.

• H is now the proud owner of two stick horses. You know the kind where it’s a horse head on a stick. She drags them around head down and tries to break my windows with them.

• As a family we won about $8 back from both Texas and Dover scratch off lottery tickets, which probably totaled a $48 investment. FAIL.

• We got one number from all our tries for the Mega Millions lottery. Maybe next time. Gotta work up to all those numbers at once.

Most importantly, we spent the holiday with all of our parents and siblings, my grandmother, a great friend from college, and Josh’s sister’s boyfriend, who was forced unceremoniously to meet them all. Considering that two people work for the Air Force, this was a miracle in and of itself.

What do I take away from all this? Next year someone else is hosting!