Christmas Eve 2008

Ben and I had a wonderful Christmas this year with both our families and lots of friends! We got lots of great things that we'll need for Aidyn, and I was very excited!

We are very lucky to have friends that have a little boy, Cole, that just turned a year old on Dec. 24 (I think). They gave us their infant car seat and 3 car docks. This will allow us to keep a seat dock in both mine and Ben's car all the time and leave an extra for the grandparents to fight over. :) The car seat will hold Aidyn until he's about 20-25lbs. They also gave us the stroller "frame" that the car seat fits into it. We are so lucky!

We started our Christmas on Monday, Dec. 22nd with Ben's family. Due to basketball on Tuesday and trying to make it a million places in two days starting Wednesday, we met with them early. Everyone pitched in and bought Ben's dad a leather Harley Davidson jacket to wear while he rides his Harley. Wish I had a picture to add on here. Ben got his mom a figurine from Disney World of the 7 Dwarfs crossing a log on their way to work. They got us a video camera that I know will come in very handy in just a few short weeks! We love it!

We started out on Christmas Eve going to our friend Karen's (in Erwin). Then we headed to Ben's parents' house (in Erwin) for his Dad's family Christmas. We ate turkey, potatoes, corn, green beens, stuffing, rolls, and anything else you can possibly imagine. Oh yeah, punch - Ben's favorite! Instead of exchanging gifts, everyone brings a $10 gift to play a game. We had to leave before they started the game, so we ended up bringing our gifts back home. We had taken a board game and two card games, so we were glad to add those to our game collection.

Next, we headed to my grandparents' house (in Gray) for my mom's family Christmas.

At my grandmother's we had soup and lots of finger foods... which we ate none of. My Nana acted like we were hurting her feelings, but I tried explaining we had just eaten a buffet like 2 hrs earlier. She had old home videos of the family playing throughout the evening. We all sat around watching ourselves and cracking up. Hair styles have sure come a long way since the late 80s and early 90s! And let's not forget the large circular-framed glasses that went along with the hair! HA! Instead of exchanging gifts, we played the $10 gift game where you can open or steal from someone else. We had 21 people and it took FOREVER. I was the first person to steal (#8) and once everyone caught on to how to play, it was lots of fun. :) Ben and I ended up with a tin of sugar cookies and the movie HOOT. Ben traded his board game that he really wanted for the sugar cookies... my 8 yr old cousin was so sad about cookies, ha, so he traded with her. Wasn't that sweet??

We finally made it back to my parents' house (in Johnson City) to get our car and then pulled in our driveway by 12:00am. I was exhausted! We forgot we had to deliver some Christmas gifts to a family we had bought for, and Ben still had to go get my gifts he had been hiding up at his parents' house. We finally climed into bed around 1:00am.