Our little family tradition is that I make a big pot of slow cooker chili on Christmas Eve, cornbread, salad, etc. Desserts are Trader Joe's seasonal ice creams (soy cherry chocolate chip at the moment) and cookies and maybe a cake that I've baked.

My MIL insists on having the formal Christmas dinner at her house.

In the past, all of DH's sisters, their significant others, their kids (nine cousins, including DD) and their friends and SOs, his mom and dad, and the three of us gathered at our house for a really nice, casual chili dinner spread through the living room, dining room, and spilling out onto the back patio. We had a tree and a fire in the fireplace, and it was nice. By the end of the day, several people were zonked out on the living room floor in front of the fireplace while others watched Christmas movies or played video games.

This year, though, there are only seven of us who will be in town.

I grew up with big family gatherings with my great-grandmother, grandmother, mom, two aunts, three girl cousins, and me in the kitchen cooking, and everyone around the table happily sharing and catching up with family they may not have seen for months. I miss those family gatherings. And for several years I tried to have those kinds of dinners here, but those kinds of dinners are MIL's domain and she felt threatened by my trying to roast a turkey here (she actually sabotaged my Thanksgiving dinner once...long story), especially when her own daughters defected and wanted to have dinner at my house. It got a little ugly, so I decided to just make the least-Christmassy thing I could make and have our gathering on Christmas Eve when everyone was in town, but not so head up about the Big Day itself.

I was actually going to host the first Thanksgiving at our house in ages this year, but I was in the hospital, so DH sent the turkey I'd bought over to his mom's house and she cooked for him, DD, and two of his sisters.

This year, though, no one is coming home for Christmas. She's got two daughters who live with her (and one of their adult sons, who will likely go over to his father's house for Christmas day), one daughter who lives a few minutes north of us, and us, so we'll have seven for the formal dinner at her house.

All the grandkids are off doing other things with with their own/other families. Three newly-wed nieces are spending the holidays with their husbands' families (one in Philly, one in West Virginia, and the other about an hour north of here in Temecula). One Marine nephew is in Afghanistan. One of his sisters is with their father's family in Samoa...so my darling daughter is going to be representing for the whole lot of them.

Of course, it's the same with my family. I'm not home, either. My cousins are spread to the wind, too, and I'm really missing getting to know my young second cousins -- one cousin has a newborn with some health issues. My grandfather passed away just shy of two years ago. My grandmother is in a nursing facility. My mom and her sisters get along okay, but they don't get together often at all. One lives on the other side of their state.

So I'll content myself with making a pot of chili with cornbread.

Honestly, I think I'd enjoy going someplace totally different more, like Hawaii or something.

Roxy