The Sunday before Christmas mom's side of the family all got together for a little dinner, white elephant exchange, and a few games. The white elephant gift exchange as well as the games was a tradition started last year and has carried over into this year. I'm hoping it becomes a regular tradition as it seems as though almost everyone enjoys. Grammy got a book and a jump rope but it was later stolen. My mother ended up stealing a gift from my grandfather. I got some Japanese Cherry Blossom Bath Soap - sweet! These kinds of things happen during white elephant exchanges.
Mom has 3 sisters, 1 of which was not in attendance. Gram and Pap are from the coal region, the place where my mother was raised. We keep things simple and had pigs in the blanket for lunch. I forgot to mention they are also Pennsylvania Dutch so the pigs in the blankets may not be what you are thinking. It's meatballs with rice or sausage wrapped in cabbage and cooked in a tomato sauce - tasty. Here are a few of the photos from our Christmas celebration.
(Pap, Tossie making the face, and Annie with the cute Santa hat)
(Aunt June - she gets it and we get along really well)
(Nick and Annie. Nick's in the Dominican Republic at the moment so I'll probably be taking a month to visit him at some point.)
(Grammy with her book and jump rope)
(Aunt Sue getting her first white elephant gift)
(Aunt June got some coffee)
(It was later stolen and I can't quite remember what she got next)
(Annie picking out her gift)
(She got a candle)
(Aunt Sue back again for more - I think her gift was stolen 2 or 3 times... she was a good picker)
(Mr. ended up with some oranges)
(Pap got a ceramic book filled with snickers. My mother stole it.)
(We did a word search to start. My sister and I cheated and therefore ended up finding the most. We claimed it was a 'Christmas miracle' that we found the exact same 16 words. We later fessed up and forfeited our prize.)
(Mom taking it all in as the word search took place)
(Aunt June searching for words)
(Gram looking while Pap is trying to go to sleep)
(We then moved on to play 'Are You Smarter than a 3rd Grader.' No one was and the highest score was 6, which should have been 7 because muscles produce lactic acid...)
(Uncle Dave and Aunt Sue)
(More questions from the 3rd grader)
(Bella helping open gifts)
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