Happy Holiday Traditions

I spent the past few days running around and visiting for Christmas.  It was a nice weekend, but nothing really exciting happened. 
On Christmas Eve, we went to mass at th church in Seward and then followed with our usual Christmas Eve celebration, going to the Chinese buffet for dinner.  We have been doing this for a number of years and always enjoy the opportunity to relax and enjoy ourselves.  With both girls getting older, I'm not sure how much longer we'll be doing this, but I hope it will continue for a while. 
On Chrstmas Day we opened presents and then had a great meal of Turkey, Ham, Scallops, beets and pickled eggs, noodles, mushrooms, cheeses, rolls, relish tray foods, vegetables, fruit and pumpkin pie.  Deb has been making me sugar free pumpkin pie for a couple of years and it is very good.  Deb and I noted that the Turkey breast we made for Christmas provided more meat than both Turkeys combined in Ambialet. 
I also had the opportunity to read the paper.  As happens every year, someone wrote a letter to the editor about using Xmas instead of Christmas, decrying taking "Christ out of Christmas". The write of the letter states that he doesn't even open cards with Xmas on them.  (yeah, really seems judgmental and actually goofy to me).  As many people know, the origin for Xmas probably occurred many years ago.  As early as the 1400s the Church used the abbrviation X (or Chi, the first letter of Christ name in Greek) in text about Christ.  It then became acceptable to use X in place of Christ, and even was used for Christian (Xian) and Christianity (Xianity).  Of course, the letter writer also doesn't frequest stores that say happy holidays instead of Merry Christmas ( my guess is that he had to order presents on line).
That evening Deb and I did another traditional holiday event, we went to look at Christmas lights (Xmas lights?) around Johnstown.  I enjoy this every year.  This year, there seems to be less decorations than usual.  But we did find some great houses and, along with Deb's annual free cup of cappachino at Sheetz, enjoyed the tradition.
The last traditional event we undertook was our annual trip to my sister's home in Ohio.  My sister is a sweet person and we love visiting her and her husband.  But there is one interesting aspect that is sometimes not so pleasant.  My sister has 5 dogs.  They all spend much of the time having the run of the house.  Now I like animals, but sometimes it is like eating in a kennel.  This year we were also lucky enough to have my niece's 2 dogs visit as well, making 7 dogs the total in the house.  My sister had also made the mistake of giving the dogs left over turkey.  Dogs have a bad habit of not digesting turkey well, and they become quite, I guess the word would be, gassy.  And it is terribe gas!  So as we opened presents, with dogs at our feet or in our laps, they happily gifted us with their fumes.  It was quite the day!