On Christmas Eve, my family usually spends the day at my grandmother’s to exchange gifts and the evening at home playing games and watching movies. When we were younger (and unmarried) my sister and I would exchange our gifts to each other before heading to bed, in the same room, to wait for Santa. Now that we are older, we wait until Christmas morning to open all the gifts, and my sister sleeps at her own house. Even so, we continue to keep these traditions that we love. There were so many great fun things that happened today, the whole day felt like a guilty pleasure. Highlights include giving my grandmother the photo book we made for her, eating my dad’s homemade chicken pot and pie and playing Cranium.
Cranium was a new game for most of my family but they took to it pretty well. The best part of the game, though, was a drawing clue for both teams where the drawers had to keep their eyes closed. My dad drew for his team and my brother-in-law for mine. They drew and drew and drew while we guessed things like sleeping, snoring, lullaby, high jump, falling. Neither team could guess it, so after a few minutes of, “Draw something different! Sleeping, snoring, singing!” we let them open their eyes. Magician, magic, trick, elevator. We still couldn’t get it until finally my sister yelled out “LIMBO!” And we all couldn’t stop laughing about how long it took and how hard it was. It was a really great, funny moment in the midst of an already wonderful day. And I’m trying to appreciate those smaller moments during a holiday that could be all about how fun it is to get presents and eat. Though getting presents and eating is pretty awesome too.