It's a Counterpart Christmas!

Yesterday Ashlee and I invited our counterparts to our home for a Christmas party. It was a hit! Six of my teachers came along with 4 people from the Health Department. Ashlee's main counterpart, Saule, also brought her two young sons.

Ashlee prepared a meatloaf in the crockpot, something like two gallons of pasta salad, and I made garlic mashed potatoes (my specialty!). Ashlee also baked up chocolate chip cookies and fudge. The food was well-received and we got lots of compliments for serving meat.

In between stuffing our gobs, we also played a game of jeopardy (the winner got his very own set of Christmas ornaments!) and a white elephant gift exchange. Everyone did really well at bringing a wrapped gift -- but they were all too polite to steal during the actual game. It was pretty much the complete opposite of how the game goes with the McMeekin clan back home. Everything was very orderly and subdued. Whenever someone got up to pick a gift, there was silence followed by a round of applause once the gift was opened. I think they liked it.

Oh yeah, to entertain Saule's boys, Ashlee and I put on the Jim Carrey version of "The Grinch" for them. We set up a laptop for them in the kitchen and supplied them with a small mountain of American candy (M&Ms, Skittles, and a couple of Nerds ropes). After about 10 minutes they ran into the living room where the rest of us were visiting to complain that the movie was too scary. Hm, I guess I should have seen that coming.

PS - The best answer in Jeopardy came in response to the question: "What is Santa Claus' 'real' name?" Immediately after I read the question, three hands went up and Saule's son, Jardembek, confidently said, "Merry Christmas!" He got points for his energy.

Me and my present.

Imash, the winner of Jeopardy, and Jarbek, Saule's son. You can't really tell in the pictures, but Jarbek has long blond hair that he keeps in a thick braid. Whenever he's at the health department, people think he is Ashlee's son.

This is Saule's other son, Jardembek. He surprised everyone when he successfully answered the 300pt "Miscellaneous" Jeopardy question: "What are the names of Scott's parents?" Literally 15 minutes before the game he was looking at pictures of our family that we have on our walls and he asked me "What are your mother and father called." Hmm, I wonder if he hacked into my computer and read the questions ahead of time...

Ashlee exhausted after the party and intimidated by the clean-up.