Okay, back on track…
Christmas round four brought us to Garan & Poppy’s house for a day of fun with about 50 people. My “immediate” family is so ridiculously huge and our family get togethers would be completely overwhelming for anyone who has never been before.
My parents cook a huge turkey and everyone else brings a side dish or dessert. I should have taken a picture of the buffet, because the amount of food was staggering. Ten hours after we started the food was still there. I swear it was like Jesus feeding the multitudes – our food just kept multiplying!
Since there are so many of us, buying presents can get a little out of hand. Instead we play a few rounds of dirty Santa and have such a good time. All of the adults bring a $15 gift and we play a “man” round and “girly” round of dirty Santa. Contrary to what one might think, the men are very sedate, hardly ever steal and are always happy with their gifts. The women, on the other hand, are vicious and the game lasts forever! We all steal as many times as possible and alliances are usually formed to wind up with the gift you want. Oftentimes, people even buy things they want and fight hard to win their own gift. Parents usually bring a gift for their children to open and this year we decided to bring games. Each child got to open a gift and their were tons of board and card games. They had such a good time playing with them (and so did we!!).
The boys all spent most of the day outside playing washers, but the girls stayed inside where it was warm! We drank coffee, ate yummy desserts and visited around the fireplace. After dark, we wrapped things up with a very loud, brutal game of Taboo and found ourselves staggering out the door somewhere around eleven o’clock. It was a long day with lots of laughs, a few meltdowns (by kids and pregnant people), way too much food and very few photographs. It was lovely and I can’t imaging spending Christmas with my family any other way!
