-=> Quoting Paul Hayton to Nancy Backus on 12-31-14  19:07 <=-

 NB>> digest a bit..   ;)   When my family gets together, we tend to have
 NB>> hors d'oervres-y stuff, rather than make a full meal... we plan it well
 NB>> enough so that one gets a reasonably balanced meal from it (as long as
 NB>> one eats from it sensibly), but keep it informal pretty much.  :)  After
 NB>> a while the sweets get added to the array...

 PH> I can see you on telly giving that advice to thousands of families...
 PH> and I also envisage a book publishing deal ;-)

Nah... that takes specifics... and contacts...  

 PH> You're far too wise for me!

It comes from years, nay, decades, of helping plan these get-togethers. 
It's pretty hard to do a sit-down fancy meal for as many as we have now,
both from space and time constraints...  We used to have somewhat
healthy snacks available before the meal, and then discovered that
people weren't hungry for the meal... so why not just drop the meal, and
make the snacks just a little heartier... :)  And then different members
of the family can bring different parts of the spread... :)  And one
just has to have the Christmas cookies and candies as part of things. ;)

ttyl         neb

... It doesn't have to make sense. It's tradition.

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