The kids got out of school early on Friday, the 21st, so we headed to Sanger that very day for Erwin Christmas. We arrived at Grandma and Pop's that afternoon and just hung out playing with Hazel and visiting. They had the Christmas tree up and Pop had put together his train to go around the Christmas Tree. It was really neat to see it setup. That evening, it was just us and Grandma and Pop. Pop convinced Grandma to get her guitar out and play some Christmas Carols for us to sing. It was such a fun and sweet night spending time together like that. The kids enjoyed it and we brought back one of our traditions from growing up. I always remember being in the car driving to Memaw's for Christmas and us all making up our own lyrics to The Twelve Days of Christmas. So, we did it again! The kids loved it too. I'll put our version of the song below.
Back at Thanksgiving, Grace made this turkey hat at church and then Everly brought it to Sanger for Thanksgiving and wore it all week. Well, she forgot it. However, as soon as she got to Sanger for Christmas, she found it and put it on right away!
" The Twelve Days of Christmas in 2018" (the final verse)
On the 12th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:
12 Fighting Aggies
11 Christmas Presents
10 Better Memories (we kept forgetting our own lyrics!)
9 Cowboys Riding
8 Bells A Ringing
7 Accountants Counting
6 Banjo Pickers
5 Texas Flags
4 Dairy Goats
3 Baseball Players
2 Saddle Makers
and 1 gooo-oood night of sleep!
*everyone got to pick the lyrics as we went...you can probably pick out who chose some!
The next day, around 10am, everyone came over to the house for Erwin Christmas.
First up, we visited and then played some games I planned for the group.
We usually like to have an official Game Day, separate from our
Christmas present opening day. But, we could only be in town for the
weekend this year, so we just played a few group games. We played "Who Can Unwrap the Saran Ball and get the Hershey kiss first" game. See below:
Then, we played "Throw the Hershey Kiss into your partner's mouth". See below:
I think Everly cheated.
Then, we played "Draw a song out of a bowl and hum it or use "do-do" to sound it out and let people guess".
Then, we played "Unwrap the box with oven mitts on your hands, but do it before someone rolls the dice on a certain number". This one was hard!
Then, we played "Draw the things I'm describing onto your plate on top of your head". It was pretty funny too!
I had a lot of fun planning the games! And we had everyone pitch in $7 a piece so I could buy gift cards to give as prizes. I think Ana & Charley took home the most gift card which was good because they said they had expensive formula to buy! haha!
Then, we opened presents. Everyone is always so generous and makes present gifting and opening a lot of fun!
We tried to get creative and we gave gift cards attached to the end of calculator tape that was folded accordion style into a Kleenex box. Then, it took them longer to open it. Atticus even wrote some notes and jokes on the paper.
We got some fabulous gifts! Here are a few off the top of my head: Atticus got a a Garmin watch to track his steps (he loves doing that!); Everly got lots of dress-up items and her own purse and an entire Mickey Mouse pizza/cake set; Grace got her own art kit and hatchimals; Hazel got some precious toys and clothes! And Vic and I were spoiled too with a wagon, jewelry, clothes, books, and more!
Then, we celebrated Charley's birthday and visited some more.
Everly went through a lot of dress-up items throughout the day. She was so funny; she would just do her own thing and act like what she was wearing was completely appropriate. Pop decided she was Luna from Harry Potter. She is just her own sweet little self and we love her so much! She was Cat in the Hat, a superhero, a fairy, and so much more!
After everyone left, our little Christmas Fairy needed to wring Pop's bell.
And she was so exhausted by the end of the day, she fell asleep in Grandma's lap.
And then Grandma fell asleep too!
We woke up the next morning, lounged and then headed back to College Station. It was a good weekend!
