Whew! What fun!
And what a weekend. I took a lot of photos. They are in the Dishers Personal Gallery under Family Vacations and Trips -> Family Christmas 2005.
We all arrived Saturday just before the show. What show you ask? The Ohio Northern University Holiday Spectacular!
We went last year and it’s amazing. If you’ve never been it’s very well done, and tickets are cheap. It’s sponsored by Kewpee burgers. We skipped the burgers this time though. Something about vintage 1960’s old ladies serving up greasy burgers in equally greasy and vintage hair-nets just didn’t do it for me.
This years show was as good as last years but much shorter. There weren’t any kids involved so perhaps that’s what shortened it up. The talent was exceptional as well.
There isn’t a whole lot to Lima, OH but this Christmas play is one of the best. If you’ve never seen it I’d certainly recommend it.
OK we’ve seen it two years in a row now so it’s time for something different. After the show we did what the Thompson clan does best. Eat!
We took over our portion of the hotel lobby. (all of it) and setup shop and waited for Aunt Suzie and Uncle Gary to show up. Something about getting stuck on Pelee Island.
Believe it or not, Lisa and Hue were actually the first ones to the hotel this Christmas. We were last, but we thought the show wasn’t until 2:30pm and we got there at 1:45, cutting it a little close. Kris said he told Lisa the show was at noon to get them there on time 🙂
The only folks that couldn’t make it were Robin and Ken because or Robins broken ankle, and Sondi and Craig. Sondi had a work conflict with this weekend and their kids were in their Christmas pageant or something. If you know Pelee Island, that’s a big deal. If you take their kids out of the show that would probably ruin it. So we understand.
We tore the lobby sitting area apart and setup our food area. Everyone brought goodies and my dad and I realized neither of us brought beer. So we needed to make a beer run.
You don’t know how hard that is to do in Lima, OH. Save-A-Lot sells beer, er well plain ol’ red neck beer but that’s it. If you like Miller, Bud, Bud light and that fulfills your beer taste then you’re good to go. But unfortunately for us it does not. Walmart in Lima doesn’t sell beer either 🙁 We ended up in the bad part of town and Corona was the best we could do.
Back at the hotel, it was eating, fellowship, cards and more eating while we waited for aunt Susan and uncle Gary and for Jolly ol Saint Nick himself.
Santa showed up around 7pm with gifts for all the kids as usual. Maria was thrilled.
Each one of the kids took turns opening their gifts, they sang a couple songs and “Jolly” ol Santa Nick was “Jolly” as usual.
Lots of photos of Santa and the kids in the gallery.
After Santa it was cards, two tables of Texas-Hold’em, where Ben won on one table taking out Aunt Susan and I made the final two table on the other table losing to Kris. He was making passes at me again and rubbing my leg under the table and that distracted me.
Then we had the Thompson family Euchre tourney, which Angie and My wife won. Or tied rather for first place. We had to keep the gambling on the “sly” and pass the money around when the security guard was napping. Believe it or not it was the same 300lb gorilla from last year.
We ate more, actually we never really stopped eating. Then cleaned up our area and queued up one last game, of Texas hold em.
A table of 8, and again I got to the final two, but at 2am my wits left me. I had a considerable chip lead and lost it to Bruce in the end.
Aunt Susan wasn’t getting cards, nor was Uncle Gary. He turned in early and didn’t play in the last game. I think that’s a first.
Lots of fun, lots of laughs. Michael and Ben are tall, nearly as tall as Bruce. Susie’s going to college next year it sounds like, Bruce is doing well in school. It was really great seeing everyone.
The next morning, all the Smirnoff’s I drank didn’t do me so well. I had heartburn that wouldn’t stop. We all loaded up and headed over to Aunt Susie’s new condo to see just how you pack in 5000 square feet of antiques into a 1500 square foot condo.
I must say, I was duly impressed! Very well done. Amazing. Photos in the Gallery of that too. Kind of like “Honey, I shrunk Aunt Susan’s House”.
She has more stuff, more Christmas stuff than you’re average Cracker Barrel. I mean it. I don’t mean it to sound mean. I’m serious, it’s one thing I’ve loved about Aunt Susan’s house for as long as I can remember. Neeto stuffs. Not junk stuff either, cool neeto stuff. A lot of it too, Excessive? Perhaps but to each his or her own. It’s what I miss about not having Christmas at her house. The coziness of being amongst all that stuff that makes aunt Susan and uncle Gary’s house so, well, warm and cozy.
Next year, we already have the date. It’s the weekend of: December 2nd and 3rd so mark your calendars now!
Angie, Lisa and Claudine will figure out where we’re going so and will let you know by June (perhaps earlier). You’ll have until the end of June/July time frame to get the money together. This way Christmas will be paid for long in advance and won’t be a monetary issue come Christmas time.
The only thing you’ll have left might be what ever travel expenses to get you there, but you should be able to budget for that, right?
We chose this early weekend so the Ferry should still be running. Since we’ve pretty much put the kibosh on gifts other than for the kids, and Santa takes care of them, it shouldn’t be that difficult now should it?
Any questions, comments or complaints, feel free to email any of us.
