Twas the night before Christmas

And all through the house, not a creature was stirring....wait wrong house. Holidays in my home are always anything but quiet. I guess that would be expected. Everything that happens in my home is insanely hilarious. This Christmas Eve was no exception.

Christmas in our family has always begun on Christmas Eve. Growing up, my mom always let my 2 younger brothers and I open up 1 gift on Christmas eve before we went to bed. It was sort like a Christmas appetizer. So this year, we continued to continue the tradition, but not without a few glitches.

First of all, I was out shopping until 8pm. So I was already tired and grumpy. Then, to add to the stress of Christmas Eve shopping, my brother kept calling me to make sure I got to my house before he did because he had a surprise for the kid. So he KEPT calling to get my whereabouts...

So finally, Target did us a favor and closed! We had nowhere to go but home, or so I thought. As we were driving home, my dear hubby decided that we should go look at how the neighboring communities decorated their homes for the holiday season. I didn't want to go. He and the kid did. 2-1 I lost. No going home for me.

So for the next half hour, I drove around and admired lights with the family. It was worth it. Everyone enjoyed it.
Then, we were able to go home. (insert big happy face here)
Then, my brother arrived. This was the surprise: Okay there should a pic of my bro dressed as Santa, but my camera is lost. Bah humbug!

Of course, my daughter explained to us that this was in fact NOT Santa Claus, but Uncle AJ dressed up like Santa. Because Santa is white.

Huh?
What 3 year old says that?
I blame TV.

Personally, I believe Santa should be depicted in several ethnicities to confuse the heck out of kids. This way, anybody could dress up as Santa and kids all over the world would be convinced. But hey, I guess that's another blog entry.

Anyhow, as we waited for midnight to arrive, we laughed, we drank , and we played games. Oh wait, I forgot to mention that my brother, at 27 years old, had a random temper tantrum and decided to leave and go to the movies. This of course made me mad. So, we went and woke up our mom with the argument. Hey- she is still our mom no matter how old we get. So if we are fighting, she has to mediate (or pass out some face smacks-whatever works). So the dispute was settled and we were back to playing Fundex Games Phase 10 Card Game, which is an amazing family game if I may say so myself. The game was between the men in the family and I. Of course I won. Girls are always smarter than boys.

At 11:30pm we gave in ans opened our one gift. The kid was crying because she was tired.All was well.  Then, we went to bed.

I hope your Christmas Eve was amazing. I can't wait to hear about it!