Good afternoon!
Well we went to our second Christmas family gathering in St.Thomas last night and it went extremely well.
We left our place yesterday around 1:30 pm to drive to St.Thomas. The roads were good but since we were running late it seemed that everyone on the road knew we were running behind and tried to slow us down. Thank goodness my husband is a truck driver and he was able to get us there just after 3:30pm. We were on a tight deadline to get there before 4pm to get the potatoes started.
When we arrived, most of the family was already there. I started peeling and cutting potatoes to get them cooking so they would be done in time for dinner. Then I joined the rest of the family downstairs.
We started off with gift exchange, it was lots of fun. This year we did it a little different. Here is what our family did. Each adult had to buy 1 adult gift, it had to be something a male or female could want or use. We put them into a pile and wrote down numbers to put into a basket. Then we had to draw a number from the basket. The first person who had number 1 went up and chose a gift from the pile. Then number 2 and so on, and so on until the last number was drawn and their gift was opened. Now here is where the fun came in. During gift opening, if you did not like the gift you received you could exchange it for another gift someone previous had already opened. For example, person number one opened their gift, they were stuck with their gift until someone exchanged with them because they were number one. Then person 2 comes along and they open their gift. If they didn’t like it they could exchange with person number one. In the end, you really want the last night drawn because you could exchange it for any of the previous gifts already opened. It was quite different, entertaining and lots of laughs!
Now for the kids gift exchange, we drew names for them because that is really what Christmas is all about. Christmas is more for the kids than adults. Brandon got a 5 in 1 Cars game console for the ride down to Florida. He loved it and wants to play it now but unfortunately we don’t have any batteries so we will have to pick some up.
After gift exchange, we sat around and caught up with some family things waiting for dinner to finish. When dinner was finished we all ate a huge, delicious turkey dinner. Then everyone was ready for big, long nap!
Later on in the evening my cousin Jen showed up with her new baby girl! Cloe was such a beautiful, quiet baby. She slept the whole time during her visit but the family could not stay long because they had some shopping to do and the parents were tired. But in their short visit I did manage to get some photos!
Later on in the evening, we decided to pull out the RockBand game. It was a blast! We were planning on staying the night but as the night progressed my fear of Kathy’s cat grew. Her cat is a good cat; however she can go into attack mode at anytime since she was previously abused. By 11pm, most of the famiy was gone home, Kathy fell asleep on the couch, kids were getting tired as well. But Jeff, Brian, Greg, Valerie and myself kept playing RockBand. It wasn’t until 1:30am that I decided we should just head home.
We packed up and headed out on the road in hopes to get home by 3:30am. But it didn’t turn out that way! When we left, we knew we needed gas but Jeff thought that a gas station on the outskirts would still be open. To our surprise it was already closed for the night so we had to drive into London. We went around in circles trying to find a gas station still open at this time in the morning. Finally we found a Pioneer gas station on Commissions Road that was open! We filled up the Durango with gas and headed out on the roads for home. We had to drive slowly home because the roads were quickly covering with snow. But in the end, we arrived safely back at home at 4:30am and went straight to bed.
I will have more updates shortly. It is time for me to get back to working and start some packing for our trip.
Take care!
Michelle, Jeff & Brandon
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