The Great Blizzard of 2006 kinda messed up our travel plans for Christmas. So we had Christmas dinner at home, thanks to the wife.

All the standard fixin's, with a huge turkey (perfectly done), biscuits, mashed potatos, baked green beans, carbonated grape juice, yams and cranberry/raspberry sauce.

Oh, yes, and oysters. My mother's recipe, but again, perfectly done.

I helped with those.

Not all the variety we would have had down south, for sure, and certainly not the company. A much simpler menu. But way too much food for four people and two heelers.

Heelers were thrilled with the dinner at home. No hiding in the basement whilst everyone else, and their dogs too, reveled in a feast upstairs. This year, each staked a claim on one corner of the table, and the food never stopped.

Heaven.

By the way... heelers don't like oysters.

And can spit them at least two feet. Really.

Did miss the "green stuff", though. And no sweet cranberries to mix it with. And worst of all, no dominoes or Pitch to follow, whilst sipping coffee.

Part of the thrill today was the tableware. We each ate off a slice of Ireland.

Literally.

Given that these bone china plates are expensive, and get even more so the older they are, I thought it would be years before I could give the wife enough for a family meal.

Took nine months, or so. The set of four complete as of today.

The other gifts that were a big hit, and got used right away, were the rawhide knots for the heelers.

The two spent so much time guarding their new toys and glaring at each other that they had to be taken away at bedtime.

But the funniest moments of the day?

As wife, youngest son and I sat down for dinner (eldest son was late, being with female companionship, and we quit waiting), youngest son grabbed the knife to put butter on his roll.

And stared at the bent blade.

"It's a butter knife," his mother explained with humor.

"I know what it is," he defended. "Just didn't know we had one."

Yes, almost all our holiday meals have been at someone else's table. Think you could count the Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas meals these two sons have had at home, in their entire lives, on one hand.

Maaaybe two.

So, ten minutes later or so, eldest son finally arrives. And, upon seating himself, immediately grabs the butter to spread on his roll.

"Wow!" he exclaims.

"A butter knife!"

A special Christmas, I guess.

Hope yours was, too.