Borgdorff Christmas Part One

This weekend we had the Borgdorff Christmas hosted at our house. Graham and Rebeka came on Friday night and slept over. We enjoyed our visit with just the 2 of them. Al and Graham were up late having a bro to bro talk which they don't get to do too often. Saturday about 4:00 everyone began to arrive. The food was laid out and the eating frenzy began. We had dips and shrimp and meatballs and salad, pickles and cheese sticks and baking galore. 21 people in total. After we ate we opened presents and as the tradition has it, poems were written for each gift and read aloud to the amusement of all. In cleaning up today I came across some of the poem's. Here is a small exert of the Borgdorff Poem Collection of 2006. All rights reserved. Do not publish without the direct consent of the poem writers (who will of course require large sums of money for the consent)
First off....

This is a poem for my uncle Al
At church he is the children's pal
He gives the messages of God's love
As we celebrate his gift from above.

He is the star actor and sings in the worship team
There is no doubt that of the crop, he is cream
He puts headlights in kub cars
and watches movies under the stars

If something breaks, he keeps his cool;
He can fix it because he has the right tool.
Screwdrivers with every head and ratchets of every bit,
When something's gone wrong he just say, "opps"

Although Maui is the place he wants to go
He realy should not miss out on all of our snow
For a trip of salt water and sand of white and gold,
Just take a woalk on any slippery winter road!

When he asked me for alot of cheese,
I pumped his poem full of it, with ease
Maybe I'll get you some before I leave,
"Merry Christmas!" from your favourite nephew, Steve.
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Sung to the tune of "Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer"

You know Vincent and Pauline and Aaron and Nicolas,
Jessica and Evelyn and Justin and Sir Hiss (editor note their cat)
But do you recall,
The coolest Borgdorff of all-

Daniel the coolest Borgdorff,
Has a very full-filled mind
And if you ever meet him,
lot of pranks and jokes you'll find

He likes to read, speak French and play.
But watch out! Oh, Oh, Oh
Daniel with your paintball gun,
Please give me a chance to run!

Daniel the coolest Borgdorff,
I hope that your aim's not good.
I am so very happy ,
I don't live in your neightbourhood!

So on this family Christmas Eve,
I just want to say
Daniel with your paintball gun,
Have some Merry Christmas fun!

Oh how I sure do love you,
My nephew, so wise and fun.
Daniel, the coolest Borgdorff,
Now my silly song is done!
Love Aunt Rebeka

Ok one more This is not a poem that was said but a song that was song by almost all the Borgdorff grandchildren( at least the brave ones). This was song written by Paul VanLoenen and Simon Meijers for the churches youth group, just to have fun with. Katelyn taught it to the rest and well now we may just have a new family favourite Christmas song. Just for those not too up to date with the snow boarding lingo (language) rippin up the pipe and riding on the rail are snow boarding terms for tricks and stunts (just to keep it simple.)

This is our Christmas, Elijah
(song to the tune of These are the days of Elijah)

Verse one
This is our Christmas, Elijah,
Walking around wearing bells,
and look there's a three year old fruit cake,
let's just hope that it doesn't smell
Cold turkey sure makes me smile
I just put snow tires on my Ford
Chestnuts on the fire didn't work
we'll just fry em'
The snow plow just took out my Ford

Behold Gramps comes,
Rippin' up the pipe
Ridin on a rail
Clinging to his life
He's no young boy
Grandpa's 83
Caught a lot of air
And now he's caught in a tree

Here's the next Christmas, Elijah
The Ford just came back from the shop
It's loaded down with presents
Some of which still want to hop.
I sure hope Grandma likes the ferret
It's running wild in her house
Somebody told me it would make a great pet,
But now I am having my doubts.

Behold Gramps comes
Rippin' up the pipe.
Ridin on the rail
Clinging to his life.
He's no young boy,
Grampa's 83
Caught a lot of air
And now he's stuck in a tree.

Bridge
My slush ball's gonna soak ya X8
Chorus X2

Hope that gives you just a bit of an idea of what Christmas with the Griswalls (I mean Borgdorff's) is all about.
After I recooperate a little more I'll post part 2. Come back if you dare!!!!

Christmas Concert

Thursday night we had the school Christmas concert. Jacob and Melissa are both in the Sr. band which has been playing just over a year. Jacob playing the tuba and Melissa on the flute. There were 55 grade 7+8's in the band. You have to give their teacher credit for sure!!!
It was fun to listen and watch them. Kristen had a reading part and was in the choir. Melissa was Earl in the Christmas concert "From our Herd to your Herd". She had an awesome cowboy drawl and did a great job. Vaseline and coffee grinds made an interesting beard.
Today is the Borgdorff Christmas, everyone should be here later this afternoon. I'll post some pictures tomorrow of all the fun. Hope you have an awesome weekend and are enjoying this Christmas season. Shopping is done and cookies are baked. I'm ready, so bring it on!!!!

Looking back...

As I get ready for spending time with family I came across a story Melissa wrote in September. Kind of like the "what did you do this summer story" that you always have to do in September. I thought I would share it. As you think over the last year remember all the great times you spent with friends and family, all the memories that made 2006 a memorable year. (Her spelling not mine.)
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The Tail of the Travelling Cottagers

By Melissa Borgdorff

Sept 19, 2006

Like most summers I go cottaging with the Wagensvelds, my mom's family and the Borgdorff's my dad's family but my mom's cottaging trip was a whole different story.

Well the drive was just horrible. It was so long, we had to turn around so many times and we had no idea where we were going. All we knew whas that it was somewhere near Perth and it was called Tay Hawk. We were also carrying a boat so we went even slower. Let me first introduce the family who went. There were my Grandparents. The Jonkers, Aunt Krista, Uncle Dave, Madelyn, Lauren and Rachel. The Wagendsvelds Uncle Jay, Aunt Jenn and Annika who is 7 months. There was the Mecleans, Uncle Doug, and Aunt Jennifer. Than there was my family. Mom, Dad, Jake Kristen and me. Nick also came from the Borgdorff side because Jacob in the only boy. After getting there we finally got to settle in.

We got everyone sleeping somewhere adn we noticed that the place was infested with animals. There was a mouse in one of the bunkies. Two mice were in the kitche, ants were everywhere, and we watched a snake eat a toad. Owwwwwww, but most of all the mosquitoes were the worst. Our little cousin Annika, yes who is only 7 months got eaten alive her first night. We did end up getting the mice out of the cottage, we did fix the ant problem and the mosqitoes we just had to live with. The rest of the week was just AWESOME!!!!

We had lots of fun in the water, like swimming, fishing and doing water sports. The lake was really warm and we swam to the island. We had lots of fun with water sports, we got to try knee boarding, wakeboarding, water skiing, and tubing. We had a fishing tournament and my dad won. There was a scavenger hunt and many campfires where we sang lots of silly songs, took lots of pictures and most of all we got it all on tape. It was definitely the best vacation ever. I would do it again any day.

So if you are looking for an adventure, cottaging with the family is the way to go and if you are not looking for an adventure don't go cottaging. Thank-you

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Hope it brought back some memories of this trip or trips that you have spent with your crazy family. As Christmas nears and you think back to years gone by what you remember most is the time spent together and traditions you shared with family and friends, not what was under the tree.

Kim

Trees are decorated

The lights are on and the trees are decorated. We had some issues with the real tree, it seems to have grown with bend in the trunk which made it challenging to get it to stand up straight without falling over but it lasted the first night and it's still up. The magazines that are being used to prop it in the right direction seem to be working. Al scared me at first and said he used my stampin'up catalogues to do the trick. Jacob is busy playing Nintendo and wouldn't get out of the way so here you can see him sporting his new hat.

New Blog added

I have added a new Stamping with friends blog to the index. Pop in and check out some stamping ideas.
Kim

Share your favourites Christmas memories...
Here are Al's answers.. very different from my sisters answers on their blogs.
1. Egg nog or hot chocolate? Egg Nog
2. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes.
3 . Coloured lights on tree/house or white? Coloured lights much to his wifes chagrin.
4 . Do you hang mistletoe? No
5. When do you put your decorations up? First clear Saturday in November (outside lights).
6. What is your favourite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? Ham
7. Favourite holiday memory as a child: Getting together with Elzinga cousins in Hamilton
8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? Santa was created after I was born. Don't recall always knew but took the candy canes at the mall from the Santa anyway.
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Opened them the night of the Timothy Christian school program which was the last day of school before Christmas holdiays. (as a kid) NOW- when ever my wife tells me.
10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree? Stupid lights, I'm changing to LED someday soon. Kim is typing while I am replying to these questions and fixing stupid lights. To answer the question- I put my decorations on the tree one at a time.!
11. Snow…love it or dread it? Live with it, days I love and days not so much depends on my mood.
12. Can you ice skate? Yeah we even built an ice rink in our back yard last year
13. Do you remember your favourite gift as a child? Train set (still have it in the garage somewhere)
14. What’s the most important thing about the holidays for you? Aside from celebrating the real meaning, it would also be getting together with family. I love that part.
15. What is your favorite holiday dessert? Shortbread and Kim's pecan crescent rolls. Never had them before I joined the Wagensveld.
16. What tops your tree? Which one? Angels on both, there is a pot light over the head of one gives a angelic glow.
17. Which do you prefer, giving or receiving? Giving especially to my wife.
18. Gift bags or wrapping paper? Gift bags all the way.
19. Do you send out Christmas cards? NO Kim does
20. Real or artificial tree? Yes
21. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Both. We head down to Waterloo every year for Christmas day.
22. What is the most annoying thing about this time of year? Stupid lights (still working on them)
23. When do you take down your Christmas tree? Dec 31 before New Years - before Jacob's birthday.
24. What is your favourite Christmas Album? Sting and Bing Crosby sang at a TV Christmas special, still one of my favourites. If anyone remembers the Police.
25. What is your favourite Christmas Song? Drummer Boy - like comfort food!!

Lights are fixed and Al is upstairs putting them on the tree.
Enjoy the beginning of the Christmas season with all it's memories and traditions.