Hello friends and Hivians. How is everyone doing? I hope those who celebrate Christmas had great times. For those who don't you as well 😃 For me, I had a great couple of days. I took a short road trip just under 200 miles to see my mother and sisters.
Well, first off, if I had stayed at home, I would not have had a white Christmas. We just haven't gotten snow in the Omaha, Nebraska area. On my drive to Sioux Falls, South , started to see snow as soon as I hit the border of South Dakota. Though it's just under a 3 hour drive to the North, it's noticeably colder.
Here we gather for a simple dinner on Christmas Eve. We had sandwiches, soup and a small meat & vegetable tray. A few choices of sandwiches: wheat or white bread with either turkey or ham. I chose wheat bread with ham. Two choices of soup: Wisconsin Cheddar or Creamy Potato soup. I went with the Wisconsin Cheddar but I did have a small scoop of the creamy potato just for a taste test. Both souos were absolutely delicious. At the table are my Mom, sister Lisa, and my son Cole.
After dinner, we just chilled and had a few different conversations. After sometime, my sister brought out a box of baked goodies. I was thinking I haven't been tempted this season much. I refrained pretty well I had two pieces. We will see how well I do in the next few days because they were sent home with me, haha. Monday is a long way away to pawn them off on co-workers.
It was shortly after 8:30 p.m. we left to call it a day. My son and I gave my mother a ride home. That is where we stayed for the fews days we visited. The tree pictured above is just off the side of my sister's driveway has the Christmas spirit. Mother nature did very well decorating it.
Here's everybody for our Christmas lunch and this is the best picture out of three. My sisters were both playing dodge the camera, but I got them. Two were missing in the Christmas Eve picture I shared earlier. That would be my sister Kathy (hostess) and her boyfriend Ted. Ted had to work late on Christmas Eve and sister Kathy seemed to disappear when photo time was announced.
The dinner was pretty simple but definitely delicious. It included ham, cheesy potatoes, corn cassorole, and butternut squash. For dessert, we had homemade bananna cream pie. It was so yummy that I forgot to take a picture, whoops.
Some different action after eating together today. Some of us chilled in the living room and watched sports. My son wanted to watch basketball while others went to the garage to watch American football. I watched basketball for some until I fell into a nap.
Before I napped my mother and one of my sister's dogs beat me to it. That dog can relax and rest in many different areas and positions. This one was kind of cute though. It wasn't long after snapping this photo I was doing the same thing, haha. I guess it was contagious.
Once this particular game was over, my son wanted to go back to my mom's to do some school work. I was a little caught by that, who does homework on Christmas day? He did do home work for about a hour. Afterwards we decided to go for a drive to do something.
We decided to check out Falls Park. It's a park that has a river that runs through it and has several small falls. It was a little windy, somewhat foggy and the temperatures were a little chilly. Some of the falls had alternating lights installed in them. Pretty cool to witness red, green and white. I missed taking a picture of the white and had to keep moving to stay watm. Not only that, but there was plenty of other things to witness. Most of the falls were mostly frozen but still had some water rushing through. Away from the falls the river was pretty frozen over.
There were a few buildings around the park and each of them had Christmas music playing. Anything that could take a string of lights was more than likely lit up. The bridge is the entry into the park over the river. It's a great view point where you see a lot of the park.
What a light show it is here. There were quite a few people out this Christmas evening to witness this beautiful show of decoration. So much to see and just too many things I could have taken pictures of. It wasn't too far in our journey my hands felt much more comfortable in my pockets, haha. Inside the park there wasn't a tree that didn't have lights. There were a lot of them too. The last photo above was my personal favorite decorated tree.
Here we have a decoration solely aimed for couples. We witnessed many couples standing underneath it having their pictures taken. Next is a bench, want to sit down and take a break, Bob? I was already a bit cold and I sure didn't want to freeze my buns off sitting on an iced over metal bench, haha. A few minutes later we arrived back at my car after spending about a hour here.
I wrapped up my night watching the Los Angelos Lakers vs Golden State Warriers game. This was a really good basketball game. With just seven seconds left, Golden State hit a three-pointer in which the player fell out of bounce after shooting it to tie the game. With one second left the Lakers made a game winning lay-up. My son stayed up to watch another game afterward, I went to bed.
We ended up heading back today after lunch. Christmas and the holidays are not about giving and receiving gifts. The best part is enjoying the company of your family. I hope you all had an amazing time and continue to this holiday season with your family. Take care, stay safe and advance Happy New Years. Until next time!