Christmas 2018

Christmas Eve we gathered with extended family, ate appetizers, children opened gifts, ladies drew number for $10 gifts amongst each other, men did the same, and we drew for men’s and lady’s stockings. My brother, sister-in-law, and niece stayed over at our house.

Christmas morning we had our tradition cinnamon rolls, opened stockings, my parents exchanged gifts, niece received gifts from my parents, and those still at home received gifts from parents. I also accidentally opened my gift from our sibling exchange (oops). We then watched White Christmas.

We then went to my grandparents, ate more appetizers, gave and received gifts from grandparents, from sibling exchange (we drew names from each via drawnames.com which is awesome, we filled out our gift lists on it, I want to use those for birthdays also), and parents gave gifts to the married siblings. Some people watched Rogue One (very Christmassy), and we played games (including Fishbowl, which we also played on New Year’s Day, and some played on New Year’s Eve, it seems to be trendy).

From top left clockwise, the $10 ladies gift I gave, most gifts I gave Doctordiva whose name I drew (the fox print fabric is an infinity scarf) minus a flower in a vial necklace and lotion, the gifts wrapped (I gave my mom a set of state made jams and jellies), and the belatedly-finished-still-not-given shrug for my niece (I still also have a sweater dress to finish for her).

My sister declared once she got out of school that she was going to start Harry Potter. Um, how about wait 5 days until Christmas?! I hid my copy, and told and texted everyone in the family to refuse to let her borrow their copies. It is HIGHLY out of character for me to misplace books also I’m not a good liar (and I didn’t want to lie, so I cut off from saying I didn’t know to saying it wasn’t on my shelf), but she suspected nothing.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving we helped my grandparents decorate for Christmas, and these are the areas I helped decorate.

I smashed a bunch of random Christmas photos into this collage. From top left clockwise, the bell wreath hanging from my doorknob (I’m keeping Christmas up until after the twelfth day of Christmas; its the 4th as I’m writing), the first version of my neat bookshelf (I cleared the floor and draped all the messy corners in white or gray), Sugarplum things she’s a decoration, my gingerbread house, my plate of appetizers from Christmas Eve (I LOVE that as a meal, and my grandmother fixed more and fancier appetizers for Christmas but I didn’t get a photo), the second version of my neat bookshelf (I’d smashed my snow globe decorating and later Mom bought another for me), the gorgeous wood Advent calender my mom bought for my brother and sister-in-law, Musicalmiss’s Dr. Suess “gingerbread” house (most of my sisters and I gathered at my brother and sister-in-laws house for a gingerbread day), and center is my hope chest nativity scene (I had three neat areas to decorate, the other is in the top collage).

Clockwise from top left. Awesome leftie sewing Gingher scissors with a case from my mom (I bought some sewing scissors but they weren’t nice like my mom’s so I always borrowed/kept hers), my stocking stuffers, more tea from Mom, athletic sweatshirts and cozy socks from Mom, blouse and gloves from Mom, and all the lovely movies Musicalmiss got me (she had my name).

Clockwise from top left. Some goodies I picked out some bags of goodies from family friends. Necklace and earrings from my grandmother. The $10 ladies gift I received on Christmas Eve (well, I drew for myself and my sick sister, and I picked this one because I knew what is was as another sister gave it, lol), and my gifts from my grandmother. That is an antique knitting basket/bag. That jar is a ton of lotion, I might be getting a slight hint as to the slight problem of the state of my hands, maybe.

Our Christmas decor.

More of our Christmas decor. I missed getting our main tree with all the gifts downstairs.