Christmas 2012

We did not have a white Christmas this year (and I cannot believe Dallas did), but the past few days still felt like Christmas with the icy roads and low temperatures.  On Christmas Eve, Jill & Ryan, invited us over for dinner.  Jill set up a photo booth, however, we kept having issues with the lighting and it ended up not working out. But they were pretty serious about making this work:

Debbie is drawing the curtains in and Ryan is about to remove the light

Prom pose! 

After several failed attempts to get perfect lighting, we engaged in a famous Scottish holiday tradition, Christmas Crackers! This tradition began in the 1800's.  A cracker is a colored tube tied at both ends. It usually contains a paper crown, a joke, and a small gift.  The best way to open a cracker is to gather around the table and have each person hold one end of the cracker and both people pull in opposite directions and the contents will pop out. I even brought the tradition to good ole US:

(Skype screenshot)

The ones I bought for this dinner were special because they all contained bingo cards.  So after we ate ate brisket, spicy baked beans, cheese, christmas bark, and much much more, a round of bingo was in order!

This is definitely a tradition that I want to continue no matter where we are in the world. To learn more about crackers, click here.  After an exciting game of bingo (which Laine won of course and Ram ended up being last lol), we played a not-so-friendly game of UNO. Funny how everyone's competitive spirit comes out instantly when you play a game that involves any sort of strategery (Jon won and I was second, Ram didn't even get points on the board, embarrassing).

On Christmas Day, we went to Falene's house for another night of great food and games.  We played taboo (girls won, woohoo), and the noun and verb game which was reenacted to the crowd in the form of charades.  These pictures don't do it justice but needless to say I'm still laughing...

All in all, we had a fun Christmas experience away from home.  Though we missed our families, we were in good company in the 'Deen:)