Christmas day in the morning did not seem real. For one thing, we had to get up and eat breakfast. That shouldn’t seem strange except for the fact it was cereal Sunday, and we were having muffins and cubed potatoes as a special Christmas breakfast.
Number two, we went to church instead of the usual gift opening. Since Christmas is the holy day celebrating Jesus birth, that shouldn't seem strange either. We really liked going to services, but in hind sight, we should have opened presents on Monday verses trying to stuff it in late Sunday afternoon. For a small family, it might work. But we had so many people and so many gifts...
There were lots of guests, relatives and old friends visiting for the Christmas service...that was a special gift!
We put the food for lunch in the van since Rod had to count the offering after church so we were bound to be there for a while. With two diabetics in the crowd of lunch eaters, we really needed to have lunch on time.
...But we had all those presents to open, plus several other surprises so we needed to get home.
We didn’t even start opening gifts until 1500. Not enough time! Some highlights of the afternoon:
Tootsie’s mattress
Betsy’s 5 pound Hershey bar and Aunt Linda's gospel Hershey bars
Uncle Les’s lovely wooden book mark, purse holder and mirror set he gave to all the girls.
Elise got locked in the bathroom. Oops!
Yelena loved her reader. She carried it everywhere and sat down on everyone’s lap to read it.
Ebitt took his nap for gift opening time and when he woke up, he was afraid of all his presents…especially anything with curling ribbon.
Betsy’s ringing stocking.
Caleb ran ten miles the day before with all his brothers who are home for the holidays. He was SO sore! He started reading the sports page soon after we started opening presents. He's been to enough Grady Christmases...he came prepared!
As the afternoon sped by, Abby remarked that her little people needed to eat and get to bed. Yikes! The Grady dinner team needed to dive into action and get food on the table. Everyone in the living room opened their gifts 'free for all' style since it was already well after 5.
Once dinner was dispatched, we trooped into the living room, putting the white Elephant Gifts from Aunt Karol and Uncle Les into the middle of the floor. There were 22 gifts and only 16 of us, so Rod numbered the participants from 1-22 with a few left over. He gave A7 and Caleb numbers not only for them, but also for their children and for the one on the way! There are advantages to having a big family.
Highlights from the gift exchange:
The leopard spotted snuggies.
First , Grandma won one and then Rachel.
Rachel was always trying to trade hers away, but ended up loving it and wearing it the rest of the evening.
She and Hannah were SO funny sitting in the corner together.
No one stole any gifts for quite a while, but once Caleb picked a George Foreman grill, the struggle began.
Caleb wanted a grill, and Hannah and Betsy wanted a grill so they would swap and steal until Caleb and Hannah finally locked the prizes into their possession. Hannah only wanted the grill for Betsy and ended up giving it to her after the game was over.
Betsy picked for two. Hannah also picked for herself and Aaron, so both of them saw quite a bit of action.
Betsy won Hannah a medium size Husker T-shirt. Uncle Les quipped, he was very glad to get those out of his closets!
The prizes for the white elephant were sweaters, (one style, three colors)...
...Scented wax warmers combined with tights of various colors, one Husker sweatshirt and several Husker t-shirts, lots of snuggies and two grills.
All agreed...the gift exchange was great fun!
After the gift exchange, we opened stockings quickly and picked up all the myriads of wrapping paper, bits and bows. It was late...
Merry Christmas and off to bed!
For to us a child is born...to us a Son is given. And the government will be on His shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace...Isaiah 9:6
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