Christmas of 2011

We...my husband, myself, my daughter and her husband, traveled to Utah for Christmas this year to spend it with our daughter and my side of the family.  My mother passed away quite a few years ago and my father past away this summer and one of my sisters still lives in the home.  I didn't want her to be alone Christmas morning so off to Utah we went.  On Christmas eve, we drove around looking at lights.

The picture below was one of those homes that you drive by, tune into a radio station and watch the lights blink off and on in synchronization with the music - spectacular!

My parents living room was/is rather small and we looked all over for somewhere to hang the stockings.  My husband came up with the idea of hanging them from the deer horns.  Ingenious, and clever.  My dad shot this deer many, many years ago.  It was his pride and joy.  He had it stuffed and over time, it totally rotted out so last summer, he had it re-done but the person that did it, did not do a very good job.  The head and cape are much smaller than the original and the hide is pulling away from the mouth and other places.  This deer, at the time, was pretty huge, winning a spot in the Boone and Crockett book of big game records.  As he was firing at the deer, he shot off one of the horn tips, resulting in the losing of a jeep.  The gun that is nestled in the horns is not the actual gun he used to shoot the deer but it is one like it.  When all is said and done, it made for a terrific mantel to hang our stockings.

The tree was placed in front of the living room window and the presents were placed on the wall to the right of the tree, in front of the television.  The hilarious part about the presents was this....I went into my sisters bedroom to wrap up a few presents when I noticed some bags on the floor that had items in them.  Now, you have to know my sister....she has a habit of buying things, leaving them in bags, and putting them on her bedroom floor.  I thought how fun it would be to wrap up these items and put them with the rest of the presents, to see how long it would take her to notice that some of the presents she was unwrapping were actually things she had purchased previously.  As we had opened quite a few presents and she was cluing in, she opened one of the presents and asked "does this thing really work"?   To which I replied, "you tell me, you bought it"!  There were many more comments made that had us all rolling with laughter.  It's one of those things that you just had to be there.  You'll have to take my word for it but we were laughing so hard throughout the process, it literally hurt!

On Christmas morning, we all head down to my brothers home for breakfast and the "UGLY" gift exchange.  For the ugly gift exchange, everyone brings something they think is pretty ugly, we put a number on the gift, everyone draws numbers and you have to keep the gift you draw out for.  This is where the fun part comes in.  Whatever gift you receive, you need to display it prominently in your home for the entire year.  It's fun looking and being creative for the entire year in buying and embellishing the gifts.  One year I got a plain black "piece of art" that I kept on my mantel for the year.  My husband once stated that this so called "art piece" looked like a rabbit so for the following Christmas (last year) I decorated it up and gave the bunny as my ugly gift.   

Well, the laugh was on my sister when she opened up her ugly gift this year.  My niece and her husband got my bunny last year and let's just say, they made a new and improved bunny.  Would you look at bunny now!  They drilled a hole through the top of bunny and turned it into a lamp.  Can you imagine this bunny sitting in your living room for an entire year. - HA!

It's all in good fun and when people come to visit your home, the comments you get make it even better.  It's a fun tradition and it's a fun time for everyone, waiting in anticipation to see what your gift will be and looking at all the others, while laughing it up!  Yes, definitely yes, it was a Christmas to remember.