Merry Christmas!

I have just a couple of hours of calm and quiet while everyone is out. We've already had our turkey dinner, the kitchen is cleaned up and the leftovers are put away. I'm sitting in front of the fire listening to  the Celtic Women Christmas special on Great Performances. I've been stitching a little and decided to go ahead and do a brief post while I'm enjoying the music.

I did something very different this year. I'm always trying to come up with fun and exciting things for my family. Mostly for my grandchildren and the memories they will have. This year, since we have so many "snoops" in our family---and the fact that it's a little unfair that the out-of-towners don't get to, I decided to really throw them for a loop. Rather than put names on the gifts, I did this:

I numbered all of the gifts. It was so much fun to listen to all of the comments and conversations about "cracking the code" and all the speculation that went along with it. I told them that I would give them one hint. This one labeled #6 was a set of giant peppermint patties It could really be for anyone, but of course, they started thinking about who in the family likes candy the most. That would be Elizabeth. Still, they were wrong.

They tried to figure out if they went from oldest to youngest or visa versa. I made sure that it was so completely random that they would never figure it out. (Side note: I do not put bows on family gifts.)

On Christmas Eve, I put out #1 through #11 in front of each chair. I told the family that they should each pick a chair. Whatever number they picked would be their number for the night. When it was all over, they could just trade presents. They didn't like that at all! Then I told them I was only kidding.

From there, I made a big deal about switching people all around. Then I had the person sitting in seat #1 open the gift. I asked everyone to guess who they thought that present might be for. After the guessing, I revealed who would be #1 for the night---Mitchell because he's my #1 grandson. We opened the first round of gifts that way---trying to guess who it would be for and why they were that particular number. It was a pretty fun little twist---sort of turned it in to a game.

We're ALL about games in this family. In fact, Sandy and Victoria had prepared a family trivia game that was so much fun and funny---remembering the incidents she came up with. The hardest part was the "celebrity crush." I only got 3 out of 12 and one of those was mine (Colin Farrell).

We open our gifts slowly, one by one with breaks for food and drink. I only had one thing wrong---a gift labeled #16. What??? I have no idea how that happened. I figured it was either for #1 or #6. Turns out it was for #9---all I can say is I do enjoy the occasional glass of wine while I wrap!

I had two other little mistakes---I already gave Morgan a houndstooth scarf last year. We just gave it to Jordan---who is probably the person I bought it for anyway. And I gave Greg a griddle. Turns out, I gave him a griddle a few years ago! Other than that, everyone liked their gifts. And I sure got a lot of nice things too. I have a lot of new dvd's to watch while I stitch. I can't wait!

I've already got a plan in mind for next year. It won't be numbers, but something else, equally as fun!