Family = Fun – Page 78 – TheSabins.com

A White Christmas

When one thinks of Christmas one usually envisions minty candy canes, twinkling lights, lively carols, jolly men…and monstrously huge granny panties? No? Well, you must not have had your share of Sabin Christmas fun then.

All of our friends with their white elephant loot at this year's party

Every year we host a small Christmas get-together. The particulars of this festivity have changed through the years; what used to be a fancy candlelight dinner has turned into a relaxed informal gathering of friends. But through all the shifting party schemes one party favorite has remained: the white elephant gift exchange.

What a white elephant has to do with gifts that typically range from tacky to bizarre is beyond me but this classic Christmas game certainly unearths some timeless treasures. Power Klingon on cassette tape, golden pheasant sculptures, lice spray, headless nutcrackers, archaic computer manuals, brass knuckles…the list goes on and on. This year Brett was even fortunate enough to procure a very large pair of granny panties. Lucky!

This awesome gingerbread house was made by some of my coworkers and displayed at our party. — This awesome gingerbread house was made by some of my coworkers and displayed at our Christmas party.

In our version of the white elephant exchange all the gifts remain wrapped until the end. We find this method more amusing since oftentimes the gifts that are fought over most turn out to be quite absurd, like a pair of used socks from a guy with stinky feet or a half eaten box of cereal. Just what you’ve always wanted!

Jacob decided he needed to try on Brett's panties and various other unmentionables that were exchanged via the white elephant game. Is that a look of horror or ecstasy on Sara's face?

A pretty bow may disguise a loathsome gift: that’s the lesson one quickly learns from attending a Sabin Christmas party and I think it’s also the title of a James Bond theme song.

Merry Christmas everyone! May your brass knuckles be shiny and bright and your headless nutcracker a delight!

Rachel December 31, 2009 No Comments

Oh Stuff It!

Thanksgiving: the great day of stuffing. Thanksgiving for most people means eating until you’re relatively certain that consumption of even one more bite will result in a massive vomitous explosion. When I was a kid I definitely gorged myself on Turkey Day but I have since outgrown my desire to ingest painfully large quantities of food. Thanksgiving has therefore become a holiday of food quality not quantity for me. Everything I make for our crazy array of family dinners has to be homemade and delicious; I usually bring out my most decadent and elaborate recipes for this holiday.

This is the cluster of family members that was still at my parent's house when I realized I hadn't taken any pictures yet.

With two families to visit, Thanksgiving, like Christmas, is typically very hectic for me and Jason and generally leaves us completely exhausted. So this year, in addition to the pumpkin cheesecake and assorted tidbits I made for our family dinners, I decided to cook me and Jason pre and post Thanksgiving meals on Wednesday and Friday. I thought it would be nice to make some tasty food on days we could actually relax a bit and enjoy it.

I made Butternut Squash Soup, Phyllo Wrapped Asparagus, and Bruschetta with Sautéed Sweet Peppers and Creamy Gorgonzola for our pre-feasting feast and an absolutely scrumptious, and time consuming, Beef Bourguignon recipe for our post-holiday stuffing. Yum!

This delicious Beef Bourguignon took 3 hours and whole bottle of red wine to make. — This delicious Beef Bourguignon took 3 hours and an entire bottle of red wine to make. It was worth it!

Spreading out our holiday food intake turned out to be pretty perfect for me since I don’t really care for the normal Thanksgiving porking. Jason made no complaints about this 3 day food fiesta but maybe that’s because his mouth was too crammed to utter a syllable. Either way, I think I have stumbled upon a lovely new Thanksgiving tradition that I am going to continue in the years to come.

Rachel December 8, 2009 No Comments

Freaky Festivities

Every year we undertake a maddening endeavor: a Halloween party of such magnitude that only those with questionable sanity would attempt it. Okay, maybe it’s not quite elaborate enough to be a product of lunacy, but it’s a ridiculous amount of work: sewing costumes, decorating every possible surface of two floors of our house, buying and wrapping prizes, organizing games and contests. Preparations start months in advance and cleanup takes weeks if we are diligent and months if we are not. If you can’t imagine how putting on such an event would take so much time it’s because you have never tried it.

This graveyard, made up of the basement boxes that — Jason converted the boxes in our basement to this graveyard. I had my doubts about how it would turn out but I was pleased with the results.

I dressed-up this year as Aphrodite; Jason went as Ares the god of war. — I dressed-up this year as the Greek goddess Aphrodite; Jason went as Ares, the god of war. As usual, I sewed both our costumes.

Here's my — Here are my goddess locks. Not too shabby considering I did the “do” myself.

This is my friend Robyn, I mean Leia, and her kiddies. Robyn won the best costume prize this year.

These decorations weren't too impressive but I liked how this picture turned out. — These decorations aren’t too impressive but I like how this picture turned out.

Jason and Drew A.K.A. Ares and Mark Antony. And yes, Jason does have a giant helmet.

Decorating for this party is the most time-consuming task. Our Halloween decorations fill over 20 giant Rubbermaid containers. Just locating and organizing the items we want to use is quite an ordeal. But the hardest part of decorating is trying to arrange the same decorations into something different every year. Coming up with good décor ideas for each area in our house is hard; coming up with distinct good ideas every year is nearly impossible.

This little mouse in a teacup was my — This little mouse, peaking out of a teacup, is my most favorite of the decoration ideas I came up with this year. For some reason I really dig it.

Jason's — Jason’s parents, Keith and Sue, dressed in 50’s attire. The stitches on Sue’s nose are not part of her costume. She fell a couple of days before our party and broke her nose in two places.

Jenn as Alice and Strider the Mad Hatter. Jenn made these fabulous costumes.

My brother, Drew, came as Mark Antony and his wife, Simone, came as his lover Cleopatra. — My brother Drew came as Mark Antony and his wife, Simone, came as Cleopatra, Antony’s lover.

I created this pirate's lair to hide some basement boxes. — I created this pirate’s lair to hide some basement boxes.

We love Halloween, which is why we take on this arduous chore year after year. All the work is worth it (in theory) when our friends and family show up decked-out in their costume inventions ready for some fiendish merriment. I especially enjoy watching the little kids, at least the ones that aren’t absolutely horrified by the Halloween paraphernalia, go from decoration to decoration muttering “wow” and “look at this one”. We’re glad to be part of the magic of Halloween even if it’s a lot of hard work, not magic, that makes it happen.