We hosted the family Christmas Eve party at Jeff and Danielle's house and everyone had a wonderful time. We started with a ham dinner with plenty of other fixin's. Alesa always has to have an activity but she got a lot of flak this summer when she presented her idea to decorate real socks for each other. So, she baked a couple of dozen sock cookies plus spares for all to decorate. She put two cookies in each bag along with some mystery ingredients; malted milk balls, a black licorice stick, gumdrops and a cowtail. She then gave a bag to each contestant with instructions to use at least a piece of each of the ingredients with a 20 minute time limit. There were red, white and green icings along with plenty of other decorating supplies. Everyone had great fun and Alesa was the judge. There were enough categories for each of the 9 decorators to win a pair of real socks adorned with small sleigh bells. Lisa won the overall prize which garnered her an additional pair of 'Ugly Christmas' socks. Then there was the exchange of gifts before partying with 'A Christmas Story' playing in the background. Quite a great family night. Christmas day is traditionally for the in-law side so we visited with the Goodmans and their son Greg and had Christmas brunch, played a few games of pool and went on a hike before collapsing back at Jeff's.