Our Christmas

Forget everything you've ever heard on NORAD about Santa's travels. THIS is how he gets around. And I'm pretty sure Gene Roddenberry stole the Beam Me Up and Scottish elf idea from the big guy himself.

This is what Christmas morning looked like, even though the picture was actually taken a couple days before Christmas. Not alot changed out there, except Grammy started feeding birds and deer. We had a sunny Christmas day. I even considered having it outside by the fire pit but the electric heaters don't have long enough cords.

Christmas Eve we get to choose a present hanging on the tree. This year we got more than one! The ever popular fuzzy socks (without the element of pink surprise for Gib this year) are our favorites. We had matching pairs. On a whim I decided that whoever you matched up with was your Christmas Buddy. A fight ensued about who had to do what for whom. Ahhh good times. Taryn and Gib met up, and so Santa, following new protocol (my greatest tradition is winging it) set up stockings accordingly. Just so happened that the greenies matched up and Mariah & Indy with their red stockings also matched fuzzy feet. I love it when things work out like that.

The "other" couch.

While I was taking a picture of the Team Green set up, Team Red pounced on their loot.

The girls all got Kindle Fires, and the dude got an xbox game. He just wants to go play it. He hasn't even dug into his chocolate in the stocking!

One tradition that survives much to our excitement LOTTO TICKETS!

Indy won a new ticket and some cash valued at basically the price of a Happy Meal

Taryn and Gib both got a few bucks too. The rest of us got shut out.

Taryn enjoyed shopping for her siblings. We liked the dueling college effect of Gib's attire.

Grammy had an intriguingly heavy little box. What do you get the person who has everything? A rock. Actually it was a gift certificate (and a rock).

We are going rock shopping today since that gift certificate is burning a hole in her pocket! There is a spot on the 2nd wall in the backyard where nothing will grow. One day I exclaimed "let's just put a big ol' rock right here and be done with it!"

Grammy liked that idea. Hope she knows I will NOT be transplanting it.

Mariah is telling us how she can stay warm & listen to her ipod

without her teachers being any the wiser.

Just another t-shirt. In a bag with shredded gift wrap!!

It seemed like a good idea at the time. Mariah and I giggled the whole time we put in every scrap of wrapping paper we had thru the shredder and collected it for Gib's gift bag.

The last gift of Christmas goes to Mariah. Everyone has a weird sense of deja vu.

Mike and Grammy started cleaning up. The rest of us had a snowball fight with the paper. Grammy and Mike tried to clean in the middle of the melee.

me·lee

1. a. Confused, hand-to-hand fighting in a pitched battle.

b. A violent free-for-all. See Synonyms at brawl.

Indy tried to use her breadmaker box as a shield, so we all ganged up on her.

More melee action.

"Why no mother dear. I'm not about to throw one at you!"

this pic was too priceless not to include but it was out of focus so I hampered with it to make it viewable.

After being knocked around by her siblings Indy suffered a blow to her sanity which rendered her immobile in the pile. Mike and Grammy just continued on, oblivious to her desperate plea for help.

Taryn knows just what to do when there's a sister on the floor.

Indy tried to appeal to Gib to save her all the while pretending to be a model on a wild Christmas photo shoot. Gib is having problems following along.

Mariah gets up to get a running start on the pile (nobody likes super models)

just as Gib decides he ought to just squish everyone. Meanwhile Grammy and Mike are still cleaning up.

Mariah ended up performing CPR on everyone at once. As you can see, Indy is still firmly entrenched in the world of make believe. Those paper snowballs can do more damage than I thought.

After a long nap and alot of attention to items with screens (i.e. xbox, phones, kindles, computers) we settled down for a tradition in the making: Texas Hold 'Em! Poor Mike had to get out his never-been-touched-by-a-girl poker night table for the 1st ever annual event.

The final three:

Mike

Indy

Taryn

(note the posture. it says "I have plans to take you people out!!! and you'll never know what hit ya"

And then there were two. This just after Taryn went all in and took someone out.

The photographer was distracted by a kindle and being the "quarter master" hah. She neglected to get the winner in all her $35 glory. Taryn the Underdog won it all!!! I thought for sure she'd want to keep those quarters for laundry but nooooo, she wants bills baby.

It's been very quiet and peaceful since Christmas Day. Gib comes down to eat. We're all either on kindles, facebook, or watching TV. Indy has left for a week in Georgia and we're babysitting her demon cat. She had a follow up appt at the cancer clinic and got the best news of the year: A clean bill of health! All appears to be within the range of normal and she won't need to go back! We are so very thankful for answered prayers!