Merry Christmas 2016

The day started out with clear skies, a bit change from the last couple of days, but it was very chilly last night and although the sun did warm the day, it was the coolest day since arriving in AJ some 6 weeks ago.  I think our day time high was 55F, so about 13C and although that is much warmer than home, to quote Marg, it is not the Az we signed up for.
  We were down to the kitchen for 10AM to put the turkey in the oven, make the dressing/stuffing and get it in the oven and make the gravy [5 gallons of it].  They had a church service this morning, which would have slowed us up considerably, but the congregation set the tables up to help us out, so it worked out well.
  We had a bit of a break so we went back to our place, make a few phone calls and bring our side dishes to the hall.  In our case that meant the cabbage rolls in the slow cooker, which we plugged in at the kitchen and the dish of crepes that Marg put in the oven with the dressing to cook.  Dinner was at 1PM, so we were ready by that time.  We had a good variety of dishes from the members of the kitchen crew, so had lots of food and it was very good.  Well not as good as the big dinner Marg makes at home, but a nice Christmas dinner in any event.  There were lots of desserts and one of the ladies at our table made a great lemon meringue pie.  I had a very small piece as I had over-eaten badly and was pretty much stuffed.
  Malcolm from in the park here had the DVD I made using 200 pictures I took of activities in the park since arriving here at the start of November and married it to some Christmas music. It played on the big TV screen at the front of the hall throughout the meal.  Although most of people have seen the pictures on the facebook site, it was interesting to see the reaction of those people who are not on FB and were seeing them for the first time.  After the board meets here, they will be discussing whether to pay for more of these to be made.  I have pictures from prior years and some people have expressed interest in them.
  The dinner went well and the clean did as well.  We had followed a practice of doing up the dishes as we went along, so not letting them pile up.  We still had some dishes, all the table clean up to do and then the garbage to haul out.  In addition there was lots of turkey pieces left over along with the juice the crew made to warm it in.  This is all saved and frozen to use in the turkey soup dinner later in January.  Then when we got back home Marg still had our dishes to do and the stuff to refrigerate.
  We pretty much spent the afternoon relaxing with our feet up.  It was too chilly to do outdoor stuff and to be honest we were tired and content to kick back for the evening.
  We enjoyed our Christmas here in AJ this year but are looking forward to being back in GP next year to spend it with family.  In fact it is the 3rd Christmas we have spent here and our thinking at this time is that future years we will be home for Christmas, just like in the old song.  God bless you all.