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As we have for the past few years, we hosted Oshogatsu. For four days, we had been shopping, chopping, cooking, cleaning, and arranging for our largest get-together of the year. This year, we think we had 50-60 guests drop by at one point or the other, including family, friends, neighbors, teammates, current co-workers, old co-workers, and school mates. The family room was packed, the living room somewhat crowded, and luckily the kids played outside for the most part. Unfortunately, we didn’t take any pictures; we were too busy running around. Ron had to drive to the store a couple of times during the day to pick up more stuff.
Guests started arriving at noon, and the last guests didn’t depart until midnight — a long day. We ended up with a ton of leftovers, which we mostly ate over the following week. It also took several days afterwards to put most of the house back in order (although we still have tables out going into February). Still, we only do it once a year, and we enjoy having everyone over for a good time.
We hosted some friends for dinner on Christmas Eve. Paula and her three kids, Eliisa, Oliver and Niklas; Nikki and her son, Alec; and Grace and her daughter, Ava.
Like Thanksgiving, we had lots of food. Ron tried cooking a rib roast for the first time; it barely fit into our small oven. Even though Ron used a digital oven thermometer, the meat came out a little more done than the Gee family likes; next time, he’ll take the roast out at 130 degrees for medium rare. Iris made homemade mashed potatoes, Nikki made a refreshing salad, Paula brought a fruit salad, and Grace brought a pecan pie.
            
Our bathroom tub had begun draining increasingly slower, until eventually we were standing in inch or two of water by the end of our showers. The bathroom sink was also draining slowly, and a bottle of Drano didn’t help, so we finally called Bob and Marc Plumbing. We had used them several times before, most recently to install the tankless hot water system when our water heater went out.
The plumber arrived shortly after we called, and after snaking deep into the drain pipe, pulled out a big, dense, hairy plug that looked like a small rat.
We went down to Seal Beach to celebrate Christmas with Ron’s side of the family. Jan made a rib roast using a Lawry’s Roast Beef recipie that she got out of the LA Times. Julie’s carving the roast in this pic.
After dinner, we celebrated Iris’ and Morgan’s birthdays, since Morgan’s birthday was just a couple of days ago, and Iris’ birthday was coming up the following week.
   
Morgan invited her basketball team and some friends from school to a sleep-over birthday party. The plan was to have a scavenger hunt the next day, so they started off by splitting up into teams, and each person made a t-shirt with their team’s color as part of the main design. Iris made a big pot of spaghetti for dinner.
Coincidentally, Santa Claus came through the neighborhood, escorted by a couple of police cruisers. He stopped at a nearby corner, Morgan got to tell him what she wanted for Christmas, and the girls all got a group shot with him.
We all then went to El Segundo’s Candy Cane Lane Luckily, Michelle Olson volunteered to drive so we wouldn’t have to try and shuttle all of the kids in two cars. Candy Cane Lane was spectacular, as always. Afterwards, we drove over to Yogurberry, where everyone got to make their own frozen yogurt dessert.
The next day, the group broke up into their teams. Iris had come up with some really good goals for the scavenger hunt, including picking up an item at Airport Cleaners in El Segundo, getting their picture taken with a Rite Aid employee, finding out the price of a chicken taco at Fantastic Cafe, and getting a hand stamp from the El Segundo Library. It was a fairly long scavenger hunt, and both teams came back pooped.
The El Segundo High School Surf Team posed for a team picture after their meet with Mira Costa.
We went down to the Low’s house in Seal Beach to celebrate various birthdays with Ron’s sisters’ families.
A dodgeball tournament was organized at the Venice Japanese Community Center over the Thanksgiving weekend. It was a ton of fun, with kids, and adults, getting into the action. In fact, the adults seemed to be getting into it more than the kids. A mobile taco crew provided dinner and the evening was capped off with a showing of Dodgeball
We hosted Thanksgiving at our home for the first time in many years. For the past few years, Iris’ niece, Jennifer, had been hosting it, but this year, Jennifer and her husband, Edward, were in London over the Thanksgiving week. It was going to be a challenge, because our oven can’t accommodate anything very tall, like a turkey.
Early Thanksgiving morning, Ron and the two girls ran in the Torrance Turkey Trot, a 3-mile run over by the Torrance Airport. Ron has run this race a couple of times before with Paula, and this is the first time the girls ran it. Stephanie ran in 28 minutes, Ron finished at 35 minutes, and Morgan came in at 54 minutes.
We had 16 people over for Thanksgiving dinner: Iris’ mom, Sue; Iris’ brother, Scott, and his son, Casey; Scott’s ex-wife (and Casey’s mom), Julie; Julie’s mom, Joyce; Julie’s cousin; Ron’s friend, Paula, and her three children, Niklas, Oliver, and Eliisa; and our new friend, Grace, and her daughter, Ava.
There was tons of food. We got a turkey and ham from Honey Baked, and Iris made garlic mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, stuffing, homemade cranberry sauce, and baked yams. Paula brought a fruit salad, and we had LOTS of desserts, including a quarter-sheet chocolate cake with banana filling brought by Julie’s cousin.
Stephanie competed for El Segundo High in a multi-school surf meet in Hermosa Beach. Other schools competing were Redondo Union, Mira Costa, San Pedro, Palos Verdes, and South Torrance. Stephanie placed fourth in the Girls Long Board competition, beating out the surfer from Redondo Union and San Pedro. Also competing that day were Stephanie’s friends, Kristin and Samantha.
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