December 19th: Christmas at the Rahns'

 

Craig, Karen, Fran and I attended a fund raiser at their yacht club. We played Bingo! Except this Bingo had a variety of ways to win. The second game was exciting! I yelled Bingo! Fortunately, Craig looked at my card and said you're missing one of the lines. I was able to state my error very quickly and they moved on. Embarrassing, but it was fun for a moment! Everyone was very forgiving. The people at the yacht club are very nice.

While we were eating dinner, we started talking about all the great Christmas movies. Fran said she had never seen The Christmas Story. We assured her she was mistaken. After talking about the "Leg Lamp", and her having no idea what we were talking about, Karen said we'll have dinner and movie night at our house.

As I knew from past Christmases, the Rahns', well largely Karen with Craig doing a lot of the work, go all out for Christmas. It is definitely a joint effort but I feel certain the volume of decorations is all Karen's idea. When Fran arrived she entered through the front door and remarked how festive the front room looked. I said, "You haven't seen anything yet!" 

We sat in the living room and enjoyed some appetizers, and manhattans. Then we had a tour of the rest of the house, the dining room, the family room, the kitchen, the guest bathroom and the hallways. Here are some pictures to demonstrate why I said , "You haven't seen anything yet."

Tree number one, Nautical theme

Tree number 2, by the fireplace

Tree # 3, Family room

acetmenophin crystals

 

We had a great pork tenderloin dinner accompanied by veggies, rice and my homemade rye bread. I felt quite complimented when Fran asked for my rye bread recipe because she bakes her own bread!  Everything was delicious. I brought my latest version of cheesecake for dessert but we all decided to wait until later. During the movie intermission we had the cheesecake with wild mountain blueberries on top. 

Fran said she enjoyed the movie and definitely had not seen it before. We all remarked about the memories from when the movie was made in Cleveland, Ohio, portraying Christmas in Cleveland, Ohio in the early 1950's. Fran grew up in Syracuse, N.Y. so she could relate to the snowy winter.

Looking forward to the Botanical Gardens Holiday display tomorrow night. Pictures will of course be in the next blog.