Oyster Roast and Christmas Tree

Picking out our Christmas Tree
Ansley being goofy and hiding behind the trees and jumping out at us. I caught her in action.

I didn't drive into the garage with the tree on top this time. I've done this twice before. I don't recommend it by the way.

Putting ornaments on the tree

Elisabeth hung ALOT of ornaments down low. The branches were dragging the ground by the time she finished :-)

Finally decorated!

We don't eat oysters so John is waiting at the concession stand to get all of us a hotdog :-)

Showing off her Citadel sweatshirt

The oyster cooker

The oysters......gross

Elisabeth playing in the mud. This is a recipe for a huge disaster....

Thank goodness there was a fireplace in the shelter to keep us warm. Ansley took over our camera and took a zillion pictures of the fire. This is just one of the many.

Me putting my hands towards the fire to try and stay warm. I didn't have any gloves and I was freezing!

Elisabeth playing with her water bottle. Right after this picture was taken she proceeded to squirt water from the bottle onto the camera lens. She thought it was real funny......I didn't.

Last weekend The Citadel Alumni Club held it's annual oyster roast. It was a rainy cold day. The high that day was around 41 degrees. Brrrr! John left before us to help set up and then we came a little later. We stayed for hours in the cold but the good news is there was a fireplace in the shelter so we could stand next to it for warmth! I don't eat oysters (I've had one once and that's all I need) and neither does John so all of us enjoyed a good hotdog and chips and had a nice time talking to couples we already know and some new ones that we met that day. One of the couples had 2 children from China so it was interesting to talk to them. Lots in common! And of course Bunny and Don Knebusch were there.......they traveled to China with us so they really enjoyed seeing Elisabeth and how much she has changed. I think the only time we ever see Don and Bunny is at the yearly oyster roast!

After that we decided it would be a good time to go get our Christmas tree and then head home to sit by the fire, drink hot chocolate and start decorating the tree. It was a nice relaxing day. Decorating the tree is one of my favorite parts of Christmas. We had many new ornaments to add to the tree this year. One from the Bahamas, one from the USS Harry Truman and one from Mexico. We didn't buy a huge tree this year and we almost had too many ornaments for the tree. Everytime we travel we buy and ornament for our tree. It's an easy souvenir and we get to pull them out and look at them and reminisce every year.

I hope each of you are enjoying this Christmas season and are taking time out to remember what it is really about......the birth of Christ. We are so very spoiled in this country and get caught up in all the commercialism. I am trying to make and effort not to do that this year and to just enjoy Christmas and spending time with family and taking advantage of as many volunteer opportunities as I can to help others.