5 Day Christmas Extravaganza--with pictures

We knew very early on that this year was going to be like no other...at least we can hope. I say that because we were BUSY. Everyday, we were going somewhere else. Let me explain.


Day 1: Christmas Eve- 4 out of 5 brother were home today. Which meant lots of catching up and a lunch with Granddad..yum. :) Followed by a Christmas Eve service at church. Once the family was settled after the service (all comfy again) with good food from a late dinner in our bellies, we played a family game of charades. Let's just say the "wedded" team lost even though we had 4 players. A combination of pushing the button at the wrong time and just plain hard words like "gas giant"--try picturing your mother in law doing that one--led to our demise.


Day 2: Christmas! The alarm---ohh yes, alarm--went off at 7:45 so that we could shower, pack, and be on the road by 9 to visit my family in Woolrich (the town where the store started/has the mill where things were made). It's a 2.5-3 hour drive.

We arrived during the present opening. Normally this happens after the food, but they were trying to wait for us to eat. I was very thankful. 

So we opened, we ate, we chatted and of course there was the opportunity to test out some of the gifts.

 This is one of my gram's cats that she saved from a shelter..Miss Daisy.

Day 3: A Clark Christmas Our time there was short lived because on Saturday the alarm sounded at 7:45am again to head back to Shillington for the Clark family Christmas gathering. I'm glad we were able to work it into our schedule because the WHOLE family was there. Even my sister in law who is scheduled for a c-section tomorrow [more on this later]

Here is the Clark Family Run-down. 

4 generations.1 Great-Grandfather who has 3 children w/ 3 spouses.

Those 3 parental units have a combined total of 13 kids--who now have 7 spouses.

And there are 4 great grandchildren (and 2 on the way)

If you lost count there are 30 people in this picture (but 1 spouse & 1 fiance are missing)

[it's a good thing they had stairs big enough]

Day 4: Zelinske Christmas Today ended up rather full as well. Church, V&S lunch [courtesy of Granddad & Pete], Eagles game, & gifts with my parents & grandmother.

Day 5: The finale I've dubbed this day the finale because I have nothing on my mental calendar after this day. Monday is Shady Maple with my Zelinske cousins to stuff more food into my stomach. But even more exciting is the birth of my 2nd niece. This is very exciting to me. The last time a baby came into the Linsky family, I was not even engaged yet. Wow--maybe we'll be next ;).

Now we have unpacking, organizing, and I'm sure some relaxing to do during this final week of vacation. The only present that I'm still hoping to get is a JOB. hahah 

Hopefully I have some awesome news to write about...meeting the next little baby girl. Otherwise, you may just hear some more about this year's extravaganza.

A Zelinske Tradition

Ever since I can remember, my grandfather, Bum as we called him [maybe more on that name later] always made cut out cookies. Since they were soo tasty, my parents got the recipe and it was the one cookie that we made and ate EVERY year. Well, Bum passed away September of 2008 and I the cookies took on a whole knew meaning. Now they aren't just a cookie but they remind me of him.

So in honor of him, I took my first crack at it. My directions more or less were to cream butter & sugar, add the egg, vanilla, baking powder, and flour. Roll out, cut out, bake for 6 minutes (depending on your oven). GREAT this should be a piece of cake.

But no...then came the exceptions. 

"Well," my mom said, "I'm never sure how thick to roll them. 

If you roll them too thick they won't cook (aka raw egg), 

and if you roll them too thin they will burn." 

My response....

"How on earth am I supposed to know how thick or thin to roll them."

My mom's response...

"Roll one set and bake them. If they come out okay, you did it right.

If they burn or don't cook, you did it wrong."

Ohhh of course! Why didn't I think of that. Without a real clear answer (and by the way I left out the conversation about whether it should be butter or shortening) off I went with the recipe with no intention to make them this weekend due to other plans. We tried going to church this morning, but we have to use a windy and hilly road to get there. We got about 85% there when we hit a stoppage of cars on a hill that we classified as a "sheet of ice". So no church today, we turned around and came back home. 

Which leads me to my cookies. The first batch was thick--they were in the oven for quite awhile, and although they were checked frequently they got a little brown...really only a little. So I rolled the next 2 batches better (at least in my opinion). And here they are in all their sprinkled glory (next time I will be using colored sugar...sooo much better than sprinkles). They are a little crunchy..not burnt...crunchy. They look pretty, but someday I'll have to try again to do them justice.

 

 

**Now for my grandfather's name, Bum. The story is that he would always tell the first Zelinske grandchild (not me, I'm the 3rd) "You're a bum." and eventually my cousin responded..."No, your a bum". So the name was born, Bum...or Bum-Bum because we repeated cool names like that.