Christmas Games

This year, my mother hosted our family Christmas celebration. (This is my cute mother, opening her favorite gift of deodorant from me).

We had to postpone Christmas by one day, but everything was wonderful. Our day was filled with many old traditions - as well as a couple of new things, that we may or may not do again.

One of the new things were three games that my mom decided that we should play:

1. White Elephant/Naughty Santa - this is the game that lots of people play in their offices. Everyone brings a wrapped gift, numbers are drawn and people open presents or steal presents based upon their number. This game was fun, but everyone was pretty satisfied with the gift they opened, so there wasn't too much stealing. The winner for best white elephant gift giver is my mother-in-law. My mom got stuck with this wonderfully obnoxious frog nutcracker (that my MIL brought). I wish I had a picture of it. I got a pooping reindeer - yeah! (My mother purposefully bought this one for me.)
   
2. Story Telling - for this game, we each told three stories about Christmases past. Two of the stories were supposed to be true and one was false. The rest of us then had to guess which story was false. This was kind of fun, except that my mother (who came up with the game and told us all about it WEEKS in advance) had the lamest stories. Honestly, one of her stories was - "When I was little, I liked to play the game Mouse Trap." She then quickly added, "At Christmas time." Really mom?? You liked to play the game Mouse Trap at Christmas time when you were little - that's a pretty lame-o memory. Poor Mommy. Did I mention that it was her idea to play the game?
3. Mitten Unwrapping - this game was the most fun. There was one gift that was wrapped and wrapped and wrapped (like duck tape, band aids, surgical tape, paper, plastic, aluminium foil, etc.). Everyone would roll dice and the first person to roll doubles would have to put on these HUGE oven mitts and try to unwrap as much of the package as they could. While they were trying to do this, the dice would go around the room and everyone would roll and if a person got doubles, then they would take over trying to open the present with oven mitts. This went on for quite some time. The person to completely unwrap the gift during their turn (meaning, before someone else rolled doubles) got the gift. We didn't even know what was inside, but we all wanted to win it. I think at next year's office party - we're going to play this game and wrap a $100 bill and TELL EVERYONE that a $100 bill is inside. That'll make everyone CRAZY, but in a fun way (hopefully).

Here's a picture of Bubie trying to open the gift, while Buttin rolls the dice.

We all had such a good Christmas. Although, we couldn't help but mention that this time next year things are going to be so different.

I got some very nice gifts from Santa (I was a very good girl) including a new camera (for taking lots of pictures of Lumpy) and some new (slightly bigger sized) running/waddle clothes, a shark for our hardwood floors and a panini grill.

Lumpy even got some presents too. Some new clothes, including a little "What Happens At Grandma's Stays At Grandma's" onesie.

Just a quick side note, I cannot conclude my Christmas post without mentioning my mother-in-law's gift wrapping technique. Here are a couple of pictures, just to demonstrate how nicely (and when I say nicely, I'm being sarcastic) she wraps presents.

All presents get either 1) One piece of tissue paper

or 2) One little bow