... to... well a whole bunch of places.

Well sorry for my little sabbatical, I'm just going to put up a bunch of pics and do a little information dump.We will start with Christmas eve, which happens to be my dad and his brother's birthday. (His brother is, I think, eight years younger.) So as tradition holds, the whole family goes out to brunch. We usually go to the same place but this year we branched out and went to Trotter's in Auburn. Nothing special really. In the evening everyone reconvenes at my grandma's house where there are even more traditions to uphold. The first thing we do is host the Murray Family Christmas Program. Yes, everyone generally has to do something, it can be a reading, something musical, a game, a skit... the list can go on. This has been going on in my family for, oh, 50 years or so, probably a little less. Anyways, my family did a shadow play, I was the narrator in case you don't recognize my distinct silhouette. My uncle Clayton (the other birthday boy) played the accordion. He is a pianist who likes to pick up other random instruments from time to time. My second cousin and other uncle did a skit. There were a few other things, but you get the gist of it. The next tradition is the Murray gift exchange. I managed to convince my family to play it a little differently this year. You can ask me about it if you want to know. I made out pretty good with a LCD digital picture frame set. Not too bad compared to what my cousin ended up with, a coin sorter. The birthday boys blow out their candles and we eat dessert which always includes coconut ice cream and something else. We have dinner and then open any other gifts. It makes for a full evening, but definitely memorable. Here is the whole fam.

Christmas Day! Yippee!! The day you can always be a kid! We don't do anything different really as far as opening presents. After all the presents have been opened we have a Christmas brunch and toast the new year. This year we went to my Uncle and Aunt's house in Kent. Here we have a feast like no other, bigger than any rare roast beast! Mmmm. It was a little chaotic because someone decided that instead of passing the dishes around we would pass our individual plates. Sounds like it should work, but knowing my family we had people standing up and dishing up plates or passing them three people down. It was pretty funny.The major tradition we have on this side of the family some say is disgusting, but whatever, it's my family. Some time ago my grandma brought a fruitcake meaning for it to be eaten. Well no one ate it, so it was put into the back of a cupboard. The following year it was brought back out and passed on to someone else as a joke. That is not so bad, but this has been going on for 11 years! Yep, the same fruitcake. My mom has hot glued some of the candied fruit back on.My uncle made a case for it this year so it will forever more be preserved in the family. My grandma and grandpa got the fruitcake this year. It's come full circle. We had a gift exchange in which I got a sweet hand chopper thing, it is really cool. Then there it the dessert buffet. Wow, everything is amazing. Pumpkin, cheesecake, lemon torte, sour cream raisin... MMMMM!!! My cousins know how to make the desserts! Both families play a lot of games so both nights usually include games. We have a blast no matter what we do really. I love it!