A few updates.

Okay, this will be a long blog. I real­ized that I went off on a tan­gent regard­ing Christ­mas Eve, but nev­er detailed the oth­er par­ty. Check pre­vi­ous posts, also, because I added some photos.

First of all, let me talk about the Bares/Koener/Scott/Hotchkiss/Jones Christ­mas Eve Party.

As soon as we got back from my rel­a­tives brunch par­ty, we had to hur­ry up and fin­ish clean­ing, putting out the food. I still had to make Apple Crisp. So I had my mom, core/peel the apples (with our corer/slicer/peeler) while I got the rest ready.

Every­one seemed to arrive at the same time. Which was kin­da cool. No waiting!

We vis­it­ed and ate first. Then had the kids get start­ed on their Christ­mas Present dice game.

It was real­ly fun­ny, because every­time Devin got “dou­bles” he would point his two fin­gers (like a peace sign) at the dice and go “DOUBLES” in this crazed kin­da voice. He was so funny.

But at the same time, the kids would get upset that they did­n’t get dou­bles and sort of not-so-gen­tly-toss the tray with dice at the next kid. So there was a lot of remind­ing to be care­ful going on.

And the kids had a TON of gifts to pick through too!

After that was all done, the adults start­ed in on their ver­sion of the game. A lot of steal­ing was going on! The can­dy was being fought for so fiercly! 

Then we moved on to the Indi­an Bin­go game. Where there is one present per per­son and you draw a num­ber. 1-?. You want the high­est num­ber. So I had #1. So I picked a present. Then who­ev­er had #2, picked a present and then could trade with me if they want­ed (not know­ing what it was). #3, could then trade with #1 or #2. And so on. So who­ev­er had #14 could trade with anyone.

I got stuck with some JONES SODA. Which is nasty soda that is a “whole meal” There are 6 bot­tles. One is Turkey and Stuff­ing, one is Mashed Pota­toes and Gravy and so on. NASTY!

After that, we vis­it­ed a bit more, had fam­i­ly pho­tos tak­en and then peo­ple slow­ly fil­tered out.

All in all, it was a FUN night and I can’t wait for next year!