…to have friends like these.

During the fall of 2005, my sister and I came up with a great idea: Why not host a formal dinner party for a few friends come Christmas time? Our family has always been into hospitality, my mom has always been the resident expert at all things etiquette, and we felt it would be a good experience to stretch our wings a little bit, have some fun, and reinforce these worthwhile relationships we had going. Looking back, that first Sibling Dinner was a lot different: Only two of the eight of us had graduated from high school and gone to school out of state; all of us were younger and less experienced.

The following year, my sister and I decided to do a repeat of the Sibling Dinner (named because the three couples and the hosts are all brother/sister pairs), except that we would do it by ourselves (mostly) with little or no help from my parents. The dinner was a great success—again—and we resolved that it should really become an annual tradition.

This year, it was more hectic. I dropped the ball and Emma and I didn’t get menus planned or themes decided upon until very last minute. We used four completely untried recipes (probably foolish, although they did work out) and generally did not prepare as well as we had in the past.

Somehow, Emma still pulled off amazing decorations. She is so good.

Our menu began with an appetizer bar in the living room. I made a sweet salsa dip that was really good, and I hope I can recreate it (I started with a sort of recipe, and then mostly went by taste in making it). Our salad was a unique creation based roughly off of a salad I had at ALERT, but then modified for our tastes/pickiness up here and also for convenience sake. The main course consisted of a “Cheese Stuffed Beef Pinwheel” for the entree, steamed vegetables, and “Twice-Baked Potatoes.” We paired the meal with non-controversial San Pellegrino mineral water. As always, we had two options for dessert: Emma produced one of her famous apple pies (a la mode) and I baked a Macadamia Fudge Torte. With dessert, diners either drank Harney & Sons Holiday Tea or homemade White Peppermint Mochas lovingly prepared by our resident barista, waiter, photographer, facility manager and mother.

Over appetizers and during the salad course, we caught up on what everyone’s been doing this past year. At this point, all eight of us have graduated from high school, and six of us have been going to school in distant lands.

My custom has been to read some Scripture, share a little bit of a “message” and then ask “The Question” which everyone is sort of expected to answer. This year, I read Deuteronomy 8 and encouraged everyone to remember the works of the Lord in their life. I hope the guests found it as meaningful/convicting as it was for me. The question I asked was what the Lord had done in each person’s life during the course of the year. The resulting conversation was (as always) very encouraging and edifying. I truly have a remarkable group of friends. What a privilege.

After dessert, we retired to the living room and played Telephone Pictionary, which is an amazingly fun and somewhat disturbing examination of sociological pathologies game to play with friends.

This group of friends goes quite a ways back and our roots are deep. Although we are all increasingly getting spread farther apart by school, schedules and geography, it is really wonderful to be able to gather the whole group together again each year. My personal hope (pipe dream) is that we all end up settling down back here once things like school and wanderlust have run their course. It is hard to find such exceptional friends—friends who love the Lord, who are seeking His righteousness and His kingdom, friends who want to model Christ in their lives and their work and their relationships—and I want to deepen these friendships and make them last.

“At Christmas play and make good cheer, For Christmas comes but once a year.” Thomas Tusser

Upon arriving home on Saturday, I was greeted to a home full of the holiday spirit—which in this case involved four extremely excited younger brothers (literally bouncing off the walls), one very excited sister (not bouncing off the walls at all) and two excited parents. It is good to be home.

One of our family’s Christmas traditions is making gingerbread houses. Actually, they are made out of gingerbread graham crackers, but we decorate them with icing and candy and call them gingerbread. Given the high level of imaginative creativity in my family, it is pretty rare to see a “traditional” house. This year, one brother made a train, one made a very large chateau, one made a non-traditional house and two siblings joined forces to make a city complete with skyscrapers, a church, and a park.

(Click on thumbnails to view full image)

Today, we only constructed the houses. Using a thick, sticky icing, we cut and assembled graham crackers into the shapes of our houses. Later this week, we will pull out a collection of close to 5 pounds of candy and start decorating.
I’ve got a sweet family!