Christmas Eve Recap

Lucky Adam had Christmas Eve off of work. He spent it sleeping in, hanging out with Chester, and going to lunch with a high school friend who was in town for the holidays.

I was not so lucky. I was supposed to work until 3, but they let us leave at 2. At home, we started watching Bad Santa, and got about halfway through before we had to leave for church.

We went to 5 pm mass at the Cathedral of St. P, which was beautiful.

The nice thing about going to such a huge church is that there was plenty of room still available and we only got there 15 minutes early by the time we parked and walked.

The singing was wonderful, minus the loud tone deaf guy immediately behind us. He was so loud and bad that even the people in front of us were talking about him. We moved after communion.

We were out of there and on our way to Adam's Grandma's house in the snow by 6:30. They had already started eating when we arrived, so we grabbed some snacks and pizza.

Then it was time for the white elephant gift exchange. Adam's grandma buys a bunch of random small gifts, and then numbers are drawn for picking the presents. You can also steal on your turn. This is key. Adam picked from the presents pile and got a ceramic bowl and kitchen towel.

On my turn, i stole $10 and the Duck Dynasty Duck Call from Jim. I even had to blow in it. Yuck.

Later, Matthew stole it from me, so I stole Adam's gift, and Adam stole the $10 and Duck Call back from Matthew. Matthew opened a gift and got $10 and a hula dancer air freshener for the car.

But then his cousin Luke stole it from Adam. So he stole the bowl & towel back from me, and I stole the hula dancer and $10 from Matthew. And ended up with it when the game was done. Anything with $10 was a hot item!

It was fun with a lot of laughs.

Then all the grandkids lined up for a photo by age,

and then had individual photos taken with Grandma.

I'm not one of the grandkids, but I jumped in for one.

Then all the grandkids got their mini-stocking off the tree with money in it. Adam's little stocking was adorable.

We left at 9:30, and were surprised to enter a winter wonderland outside. It had snowed at least 3" since we had arrived. The roads hadn't been plowed, even the interstate, so that ride home was interesting. You couldn't even see where the lanes were!

At home, I snuggled with Chester and read a book by the Christmas tree while Adam cleared the driveway. We ended the night by watching the original Grinch Who Stole Christmas cartoon which Adam had DVRd earlier that night (I couldn't find our DVD copy anywhere!). It was a perfect way to end the night.