Our First (Annual?) Christmas Progressive Dinner [Ellie]

Lately Bryan and I have been discussing our longing to recreate the Christmases of the past. Bryan invokes his childhood Christmases through buying the classic Christmas movies of his childhood--Charlie Brown's Christmas, Christmas on Sesame Street, Mr. Krueger's Christmas--and making our children watch them with him. . .sometimes against their wills. My longing this year took the form of wanting to host a progressive dinner. Now, I had never before been to a progressive dinner, much less hosted one. It was not my personal past I was plumbing, it was my parents'. I remember them, dressed up, bundled against the cold, heading out to their adults-only progressive dinners every Christmas. Their excitement was the more deeply imprinted on my mind because my parents were not party people when I was growing up. We never had their friends over for dinner. We never had their friends over, period. They never hosted a non-family party in all my years growing up, except for their part in these Christmas progressive dinners. So embedded deep down in my psyche was the desire to recreate their excitement, to own it for myself. To be one of the adults in "adults-only."

So I did it. And I dragged Bryan along with me. (He wasn't too hard to convince.) We finagled 7 other couples to participate, fast-talked three young women from the ward into watching our kids, and despite freakishly bad weather (snow, freezing rain, rain) we did indeed progress. We traveled from house to house sampling hors d'oeuvres, two different salads, homemade tomato soup, apple pork roast, napoleans and raspberry chocolate brownies, and ending with games at the last house. We had a wonderful time. The conversation was engaging and the food was to die for!

Thanks to all our friends who participated--they let me live the dream! We only hope they had as much fun as we did. For people who like to eat as much as Bryan and I, this just might become an annual tradition.