Christmas Eve Tradition

 For the past five years or so, our Christmas Eve tradition is dinner at the Andersons with homemade puppet show and Candy bar game. We also added some music/talent show this year. Sam cooks prime rib and potatoes for dinner, us and Petes bring other side dishes. I usually do pies for dessert. Since Audrey has been on a fruit and vegetables diet, she did all kinds of veggie dishes this year. The puppet show this year was "Elf". We did do a one-gift-for-each-family-exchange, but not individual gifts. Here is picture overload. Btw, Mason got the nastiest candy bar and a $50 bill with it. 

 

Merry Christmas to Us

 We are at the point where Ron and I don't buy Christmas gifts for each other. He hates to shop anyway 😉 And since we didn't draw names for a gift exchange with Andersons and Petes this year... he got off super easy. He only had to go buy a candy bar- lol. But... I had been talking to him for a couple of months about us getting a new car and trading the Suburban in. I did all of my online shopping and research and had narrowed it down to three or four models that I wanted to go look at. Plus, he hates dealing with the car salesman... so I narrowed that down too. Since I was car shopping online, ads kept popping up in my browser for cars. One ad was for a Honda Pilot that I liked. So, I decided we would go to that dealer without an appointment, and I made an appointment at a Subaru dealership. I was planning to get an appointment at a Volkswagen dealership, also. But decided that two in one day was enough. (It actually took alot longer at each dealership than I expected. And the Honda dealership was on the south side of SA and the Subaru dealership was on the north side.) The Pilot in the ad was gone but there was another gray Pilot there that we drove and loved. The other amazing thing was that we liked the salesman that we happened to get. We kept the other appointment, but the Subaru place and salesman was a disappointment. When we got home, I was planning to look some more and get a couple of other appointments, but as I thought about it, I told Ron, "If you like the Pilot, go ahead and transfer money from the savings account to the checking account and let's go back and get it." End of story and end of shopping. Easiest car buying experience ever. Did I already say that I love it?? 😍 So it's not brand new but has less than 35,000 miles on it and it looks like new. It was a "lease car". My joke when we talked about going out car shopping was that the first thing I wanted to do was "smell" the car. If I stick my head in and it smells like cigarettes, it's a big "no". This one was nice and clean and NOT smelly. 😉Btw, we got the big bow for free, and we gave the salesman an extra $100 for Christmas or whatever.

Jaden and Hazel Birthday Party

 Ashley put together a party for Jaden and Hazel, for one of our family dinners. (Them, us, and Andersons) There were lots of decorations, lots of food, lots of games, a world cup soccer game on TV. It was a soccer theme ... are we not surprised? Audrey helped with the games and we all helped with the food. I bought a cheesecake assortment for Jaden and made an ice cream cake for Hazel. Audrey brought some snack trays and "taste test" games for Orange soda and Oreos. Ron and I came home after half time of the game, but we should have stayed. The second half was much better than the first half. Part of Christmas for the Petes was getting a new large TV and finishing the TV room upstairs. Worked out perfect. In the first picture, I explained to Jaden that the older you are the smaller the gift 😉😎 Hazel gets the two large bags and Jaden gets the small box! Jaden's was a wallet with a $50 bill in it- lol. Hazel's was a bear pillow and a bucket of dinosaurs. 

My Christmas Stuff

 I didn't start putting out my Christmas stuff until about a week after we got home. I had other things to get caught up on and I had to recover from traveling. I put out the wreath on the front door and put out the Christmas hand soap in the guest bathroom. Then it took me several days to get everything else out. I wanted to get rid of some items and figure out exactly what I wanted to keep. Plus, I decided to store my Christmas stuff in the guest bedroom closet instead of our master closet... so I did some rearranging as well as sorting. I think I still have too much stuff, but I will sort some more next year. I am also including pics here of putting my tree away in the new closet space. It worked out perfect. I wrapped it in plastic wrap... ornaments and lights and all, then put it in the closet with the bins of my other decor.