Part 1: Smith Family Christmas

Part 2: Jen Family Christmas

Since Day of Thanks was held at Lil Brother’s my mom thought we should have Christmas at my place. Which I enjoy, cause I love cleaning entertaining. So on Christmas Eve Eve, my mom and her husband and my step-sister and brother and his wife and baby girl came over to visit.

As usual, I made lots of food.

Mark and I carried out a gift theme surrounding books. My niece got a copy of these three oldies but goodies. I mean who DOESN’T love “A Fly Goes By!” I also realized that the favorite book in the entire world of my brother when he was a wee one, wasn’t GOODNIGHT MOON like we I thought, rather GOOD-NIGHT OWL.

Which is entirely different and exponentially more fun to read aloud!

And another error, Dayna doesn’t love Toothpaste For Dinner comic strip…which is the funfunfun book I bought for her. (D’oh!)

Rather, Exploding Dog. I goofed. You know how all stick figures look alike? However, Toothpaste For Dinner did bring forth a few laughs.

And it looks like most everyone else carried out a theme for us as well. Mark= Spiderman and Jen=Penguins. (Of course!) But my brother and Dayna really surprised me with my theme. Get this? NOT PENGUINS like I thought. But a Very Merry BLOGstmas! Bunches of presents from links they found on my blog over the past year

Yay! Yay! Yay! How exciting! I mean I put things up I like, but seriously never expect to get any of them! Thank you! Thank you. Quite a cool concept.

One last picture. My niece got a Ride Cow from Grandma. Ride Cow looks strikingly like Magical Trevor Cow!!!

And the best part? I had Baby A on my lap while watching Magical Trevor, and while Trev was disappearing the cow and says “Where is the cow, hidden right now?” Baby A made her hands go out like Trev and said “Where’d he go, Jenny?” Love her love her love her so!

After the parental units left and the baby and her parents left…my friends Linda and Bob came to visit. And out came the Dysfunctional Mad Libs and Penguin Pooper and Dick in a Box. Fun times.

Celebration #3 Mark and Jen Christmas

I woke up on Christmas Eve to find my stocking on the bed. Since Mark and I were going to be headed to his parents later…we decided to do our gifts a day early. I have a very large stocking. It is my favorite thing in the world. Grammy Baker made it for me.

Celebration #4 Stoddard Family Christmas

What the family has been waiting and waiting and waiting for! Here ya go Mom and Ronda!

Marky and I drove to Erie, Pa to yes, visit with his family, but also to have his brother check out our truck again. Merry Christmas! $150 part. Grrr. But thank GOD for Jerry who always comes to the rescue (that is if we can manage to get to Erie first!)

The rest of the evening involved hang time with the Mom and the Pop. I was able to watch It’s a Wonderful Life and A Christmas Story (yay cable!) And after his parents came back from midnight church service, we made popcorn balls.

We meaning, we all, but not Mark.

So we went to bed hours before his parents on Christmas morning. How can I not love them? Insomniacs who made excessive amounts of sweets until the wee hours of the morning, sounds too familiar.

Christmas Day involved all of Mark’s family gathering at his parents house. About 23-24-25 ish people. And lots of nieces and nephews and great nieces and nephews. Over Thanksgiving, they all wanted to play BINGO but didn’t get the chance. So Grandma decided we would all play for Christmas. I spent most of the morning wrapping fun little presents.

While the rest of the house prepared food and the tables.

And then the fun begins. Chow time! While everyone else is eating, Mark’s sister Ronda and I are competing over who can take the most photos. You see, we have the same exact camera. And bought it pretty much around the same time. However, I have taken over 4,000 photos this year…and dropped my camera oh here and there a few times. My settings on the top are even faded! (I think I won!)

After dinner, I have to say that the coolest thing ever was the fact that the youngins couldn’t WAIT to get everyone together for BINGO. And yes, this was BEFORE PRESENTS! How quaint. And well raised!

Mark’s nephew Aaron played the pivotal role of bouncer and gift giver. None of that fake “BINGO” calling in this house!  Too fun. And once we ran out of chips because Uncle Jeff decided to go for “whole card” we played with M&M’s. Or tried. Crunch, crunch.

Mark’s family does the adult name exchange, this year I was lucky. I got his sister Ronda (who is a regular reader of All Things Jennifer, and so are her children Angie and David—yes, I am saving a space for little Abby when she is born!) Everyone knows I love penguins, but Ronda REALLY knows. And it showed. Many cool presents. (THANK YOU!) I think the best ones though? Are the homemade knitted socks. I am in LOVE (I wore them with my ball gown on New Years Day!) They were her first pair…And Mark’s mom? She made me a set of crocheted fuzzy dice. You know, because I couldn’t find them ANYWHERE last year.

Aside: Am I wrong to think it is kinda neat that Mark’s family reads the blog (she says waving hello?) I should be freaked out…oh wait, MARK should be freaked out. They seem to like me

ANYHOW…back to the celebration. The other neat event involved, well, every event in this household involves ice cream. I wonder where Mark gets it from? His papa. Who cranks out the homemade ice cream for every occasion. Santa brought Mark one of those fun Ice Cream Balls, so we tried it out with the little ones. (And the big ones, like father like son!) 20 minutes of heavy shaking later! ICE CREAM! Woo hoo! And then all the children nestled in beds and Mark and Jen drove home to Buffalo…in a once again working truck and carrying a few additional jars of jelly!

Merry Christmas to all and to all…

Celebration #5 Baker Family Christmas

Oh my GOSH! I still have one more to go! (At least it was the next weekend!) And that isn’t including the Happy to be here Hour, My Birthday, New Years Eve and New Years Day Brunch. I am pooped like a penguin, and off to bed. More…later.