Holiday Dinners

Our holiday dinners get funnier each year. Take these last few years – I’ll use the Goetz family for example.

We always eat between 12:00 and 12:30, mainly because Grandpa and our son Treg can’t wait another minute. Now Treg always sits by Grandpa, then Grandma has to find her own place at the table. And speaking of tables, we have now added a card table, because I’m too weak to put the leaf in the table to make it bigger. Although this last holiday, my brother-in-law, Greg, did fix it for me with lots of washers that had been bent by the pressure of Tom pushing down on the table in order for him to get off his chair.

The holidays have been getting easier for me because everyone brings a dish. I now have invited my neighbor, because she makes the best fruit salad.

Terry, my other brother-in-law seems to be getting the green bean casserole down better each year.

Now that Grandpa and Grandma are at the Odessa Health Care Center, Grandma doesn’t bring any dish and everybody knows she’s a good cook.

Greg and Lynn bring rolls and veggies, which would be great, but I seem to find the rolls in the microwave after everybody has left.

This leaves me with the main dish, usually a ham. Have you ever tried to burn part of the ham for those who like it well done (mainly me)? That takes talent, and Terry and I get better at that each year.

Now the really fun part is that we are all getting older, so we have to make room at the table or card table, whichever one the hostess has placed you at, for our walkers, canes or scooter, whichever one you may happen to be using.

Grandpa was talked into driving his motorized scooter down to the house, but when it snows he will have to depend on another mode of transportation.

I try to tell everyone at the tables that it would be easier if they would “pass the food to the right.” They just laugh at me and tell me to go sit at the other table.

Each year the talk gets louder, because some of our hearing has gone. Even our dog “Buster” has gone stone deaf.