Our Big Fat Family Christmas Dinner, 2016

Christmas dinner at Rosie's house in Richmond Hill, Ontario

I look forward to our big fat family Christmas dinner all year!

The food serving station

 With our all our kids grown, and many are working outside of Ontario, it is not easy coordinating the date for the get together as everyone is home for the holiday at different times.

E. has tried not to miss the Christmas  dinner if he could make it .

This year was great and many out of towners were able to make it to the dinner as it was held on December 25, right on Christmas day.

Philip made it all the way from Hawaii!

Philip came as far as from Hawaii for this family gathering!




















      This joyous annual family celebration is well attended every year for the past forty some years and this year's was no exception!

Our family's annual Christmas dinner has a  history of over forty years!

In laws are invited to the dinner too!

Our family has grown!

The 2016 Christmas dinner get together was attended not only by our siblings, spouses, as well as our grown children, their spouses/ boy friends/ girl friends.

Siblings' boy friend 

This year, we had a few in-laws joining us!

The cousins got together

Dave, Susan and their family played host to this big dinner for the past many years at their condo's party room.

My Sis spent days in advance preparing for the dinner

This year, Rosie hosted it at her spacious home.

 Our annual dinner is also a time to catch up with family members

Hosting a dinner for forty people takes a lot of planning and preparations.

The house glimmered in festive lights

Whichever family hosting this big dinner is brave, with a nerve of steel, and self sacrificial.

 Theodore 's first Christmas!!

I know Rosie, my sister, started really early checking each one off her list it was completed: shopping for food, decorating her house, having her house professionally cleaned and setting her tables almost two weeks before the actual date of the dinner.

Kids' Dining area

Her efforts and the hard work she put into getting this party ready were evident!

 She even managed to host a sit down dinner for 40 with enough chairs for everyone!

We could all sit, talk and enjoy the dinner in a comfortable and relaxing atmosphere.

The little cousins played and got to know each other

There were more than delicious and a variety of good food served for appetizers, dinner and desserts.

Kids have their space for eating and playing 

When guests arrived at her house, and after dinner, regardless of their age, they could all find something to do and had fun at the party.

Dance Area

 

There were kids' zone, eating and playing area, and a dance room included!

Bingo - one of the after dinner entertainments

The one thing I am immensely proud of our great annual family gathering is that we could have a fantastic time without anybody getting drunk.
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We did have after dinner entertainment and games in which guests could take part.

Our Mom and others had fun playing Bingo

For the older folks, Margaret, from Ottawa was in charge of the bingo game after dinner. Our Mom and other guests liked the game.

Bingo! Richie was excited and so were we!

" Are you sure you won? I thought I bingo first>"

There was a lot of excitement when Richie BINGO at the game!

Santa and his little helpers came all the way from the North Pole delighting everyone.

Trevor and Mom

Santa appeared, delivered the gifts and the little ones having a ball tearing open their gifts.

The cousins played the Gift Stealing Game

The older cousins carried on with their tradition, exchanging their gifts playing a gift stealing game.

Wishing J. the best as he heads to Europe!

 I bought gifts for people but I forgot bringing a gift for this specific game therefore I didn't play.

 But it was fun watching others playing. I must remember to bring a gift for this game next year.

Second round of eating and celebrating - dessert time!

There was another round of eating when Susan, Wendy, Mikaella and Rosie brought in their desserts.

The board game we played was a fun one

For the young people, E. brought a party game called Codename and taught his cousins how to play it.

I am usually not a board game person as I don't have the patience to sit for hours and play. 

But this time I was able to play this game after spending less than five minutes learning about the rules.

Lia, Mikaela and I formed a girls' team and we played against the guys team made up of Eric, Mark and Dave. Sean and Jordan were the Spy Masters for the teams.  

A family picture with Mom

It was a really fun party game and we all had a great time guessing the pictures with the clue words given by the spy masters!

Thanks, Rosie and Kelvin for hosting and giving us such great opportunity to meet with other family members. It was a fabulous dinner party creating precious memories for all of us!







R.T.
Christmas Dinner Celebration
Dec 25, 2016
Richmond Hill
Ontario

P.S, I wish Y. was here!