Hey You Can't Take That Tile!

So, everyone has family traditions that they keep at Christmas time. We open our stockings on Christmas Eve, after church. We open our presents on Christmas Day, after eating breakfast and AFTER doing all the dishes. We open gifts one at a time, much to the consternation of the progeny who, even at the advanced ages of 23, 21 and almost 19 hope that we will one day do the everyoneopenspresentsatthesametimeripandtear method. Not on your life.

But one of the traditions that I bet you don't have at your house is Marathon Mah Jongg. Do you? Cuz if you do then you are the only other people besides us who do.

We blame/praise this woman for introducing us to the wonderfulness that is Mah Jongg.
This is my step Mother-in-Law Linda. Hi Linda! She is the one who said to us one day, "Hey, I have this game that I have learned called Mah Jongg. Anyone want to learn to play." And that was all it took. We were hooked like a trout on a fly fishing line.

It is our tradition to play Mah Jongg on Christmas Day....and Thanksgiving Day.....and in the summertime.....and anytime that the progeny and I are in the same house. We play, and play, and play.

I am all ready for the first game. My wall is set and waiting for tiles to be dealt out to me. I am going to win, I can feel it! We were actually using 2008 cards but don't judge us. I just forgot to order the new cards. I will do it soon, I promise......

For some reason when we play Mah Jongg we also have to eat food. I am not sure why that is but we nosh and nosh and nosh. And since our Mah Jongg marathons go for 3-4 hours at a time.....that is alot of noshing. Thank goodness for pico de gallo which is at least a tad healthy.

Oh look! TASiL is going to play for us while we concentrate on beating the pants of each other. We're not competitive in this household.

No we are not!!

These are good and you want lots of them.....and I never seem to have enough. And then to add insult to injury there were others in the group who were actually discarding them where the Joker tiles would then be unavailable to others. That isn't very nice I have to say.

There are lots of tiles out there on the table. But I still have a chance. I know I can win......even though I have picked a particular tile combination which has a large point value attached to it which means that it is fairly hard to achieve. I can do it, I can do it, I can do it.....

Why is Shoe Queen smiling like that?

Rats, she had a Mah Jongg. And I was so close. But as we say in this family, "Close only counts in Horseshoes, hand grenades and nuclear war." We are so sympathetic around here.

Cartoon Girl didn't take the win too well. Remember, we whack because we love!

We played Mah Jongg for 4 hours on Christmas Day and another 4 hours on Saturday and I only won one lousy, stinkin' game.

But I am ready to play again whenever everyone else is.