Yesterday was the Meldahl Kids Christmas Party, held at my brother John's house in south Minneapolis. The party was set to start at 5pm, but seeing as we were in the midst of a winter storm warning, we packed up and set off for the cities just after 3pm. It was a bit dicey driving down to Minneapolis, so I was thrilled when we pulled up to the house just before 6pm. The boys were sick of the drive at that point, so they were also very happy to arrive!!
The party was in full swing when we arrived. Debby had commissioned her daughter-in-law Terri's brother to provide the food (he has a restaurant in St. Paul) so we had an unbelievable feast of Cambodian food. It was absolutely delicious. Of course, Hans kept asking me, "when is the kids food going to arrive?" I finally just directed him to the corner of the kitchen where there were loads of fresh Christmas cookies of all sorts. You would have thought that I had just said Santa was there, waiting to take their order! What was really funny was the number of adults who asked both boys if their mom was aware that they were eating cookies for dinner...they gleefully replied that their MOM was the one who had told them to have at the cookies!
After our meal, we did the traditional gift war (woops, I mean gift exchange). This years theme was "going green." As has also become tradition, someone managed to include a 6 pack of beer into a gift as part of the theme (it was Heineken - green beer...get it?) so of course that gift became the sought after gift. Debby had planned ahead and had John marking the gifts with a Sharpe pen for the number of times that the gift had been 'stolen.' That alleviated some of the typical fighting and debate over the rules that typically occur. Fa la la la la and all that. The gifts were all very creative and really a lot of fun this year. Orn came home with a compost keeper and I managed to snag a bag filled with tea towels and dish clothes and air freshener stuff. All very fun.
After the gift exchange we played a game with lottery tickets. You can't get that many Meldahl's involved in a competition and walk away unscathed. However, nobody ended up worse for the wear and it was truly a ton of fun! My nephew Travis was sitting to my left and Hans and Gunnar were on my right, so we Bodvarssons were desperately trying to win out over the Meldahl on my left. We did not. Travis won the whole deal! He was very gracious though and tossed some tickets to the boys who very much enjoyed scratching off the tickets...until they lost again. The school of hard knocks arrives early when around the Meldahls. 
The other Travis of the evening is a soon to be new member of the family, Chloe's fiance, Travis Hanson from Mankato. Chloe and Travis drove up from Mankato in the wee hours of the morning as Chloe was bound and determined that they would not miss this party.
Jim and Kathleen came to the rescue and wrote the poem for Steve and Claudia who could not be at the party this year. That was a lot of fun and well written considering the short notice. All in all, it was a wonderful evening filled with a lot of good fun and cheer on a very cold evening!
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