vividreports: Christmas Day

I think Christmas Day we fulfilled all the Tolles family Christmas traditions, of which there are many. Ellen always makes stollen (a German fruit and nut loaf of bread - very yummy). We were running late leaving home to go to Shutesbury and stollen is supposed to be there when people arrive, and since Jim and Mary were ready to leave before we were, Ellen sent it along with them. We were hoping to get there by noon, but it was closer to 1 p.m. Getting into the house proved challenging for me - the back steps into the kitchen have a railing only on one side - but I made it with some help. I took a chair near the wood stove and had some stollen. There were thirteen of us - Katie and Brendon, Tye and B, the Feinlands: Jerry, Julie, Ben and Tamar (Max is in California); Jim and Mary, Ellen and me, and Nancy, a friend of Katie's from church who lives alone. We did the basket tradition as I mentioned earlier, Brendon did a MadLibs with the group out of a book of MadLibs for Gays he had gotten. A group went for a walk, and while they were out I worked on setting up an Amazon gift card for Ellen, which proved challenging because it kept forcing me to "switch accounts," the process for which I was unfamiliar with. I think it would have been easier if I had been using Ellen's phone - somehow it didn't recognize me even thoughn I order stuff all the time on my phone. When it came time to eat, we had all the usual - tourtière, a meat and veggie pie - a tradition among French Canadians which Savanna brought from her background and which we still honor; squash and cranberry chutney. Julie brings salad, but I passed on that - it is hard for me to chew it up and get it down. We always wait until later for dessert - which is figgy pudding, another tradition Ellen makes. We sang carols from the Tolles family carol book, and we played a game. In the past it has been "Fictionary Dictonary" or "Salad Bowl," but this year it was "Neanderthal Poetry." It is a game Brendon had gotten, with cards in a box, though you could do without that. It was fun. There were two teams. A team-member draws a card. On the card there are four words or phrases - two worth one point, two worth three points. For example, on one side it might read "pancake" (1 point) and "blueberry pancakes" (3 points) and on the other "movie" and "Award-winning movie." (3 points). The person who drew the card chooses one of those four and announces how many points it is worth. Someone on the opposing team is holding a Neanderthal club (made of plastic and blown up like a balloon). Now the game begins in earnest. The card-holding person has to get his or her team to say the word or phrase he or she has chosen. In that respect, the game is like "Salad Bowl." But in this game, the person not only cannot say any part of the word or phrase itself, they can speak only in one-syllable words. If they use a word with two or more syllables, or say "win" or "cake" (cf. the examples above) they lose 1 or 3 points and get bopped with the club. To elicit "blueberry pancakes," for example, they might say "eat," "dough," "round," "fry," "fruit," "bits," etc. If the team member said "pancake," (i.e., singular), they could say, "not just one - two or more." You can use as many words as you want as long as they are just one syllable. I used "orange" in my turn, which was a no-no (or/ange). So it's easy in one way and hard in another. It's good for a lot of laughs and groans. We stayed late, got home a bit before midnight. I was tired! Good day though. I need to get to bed now. Photos later!