Our family tradition starts with Christmas Eve. The Delaney clan, minus me and my immediate family, goes to evening mass. My folks and I guesstimate when mass will be over and head to Grandma Delaney's house. We start making ourselves comfortable, arrange the gifts, and start getting stuff out for dinner. The rest of the clan trickles in once mass is over. This year all of the kids and grandkids made it back, so this was the first year all of us have been together for Christmas in a very long time. The women gather in the kitchen to gab and get dinner ready, while the men gather in the living room to gab and watch TV (usually something sports related). Carol, Gracie, Bryan and I gather in the front room to stay out of the way. This year we were joined by the Indy Delaney kids, who aren't into sports either. Dinner finally gets ready. We have deli meat sandwiches, chips, relishes, baked beans, and gobs of cookies and candies made by Grandma D, with help from Aunts Dianne and Beth.
Once all food has been eaten, the Aunts gather us grandkids in front of the tree for our yearly torture picture. Typically I have to go into the living room and force the men to the front room, which has earned me the title of "The General", but this year everyone was cooperative from the beginning. I think the TV choices were a little slim this year. Anyway, we stand, sit or kneel there for about 10 minutes while everyone with a camera takes a hundred pictures of us. Our cheeks start to hurt, and finally one of us falls over, or one of the little ones wanders off. This year Gracie got a little fussy. It was her first torture picture, so she's not used to the pain yet. Then the little kids open their presents. That's the most fun part, because they get so excited! Tommy went crazy for Transformers--and older cousin Matt went crazy for them too. He was a Transformers geek when they first came out 20 years ago. He helped Tommy transform one of his toys, but complained because they're made of plastic now. When he was a kid, they were made of real metal! Anyway, Katie got a My Little Pony, which is about 10 times the size of the original My Little Ponies that my sister and I got 20 years ago. The older little kids are more boring, because they're at the gift certificate age. And Gracie just wanted the paper and ribbons.
We then start the grab bag game, where you draw numbers and pick a gift, and the next person can pick a new gift or take yours. Because there were so many people in it this year it took forever, and it got really old really quickly. We open the gifts as we get them, so we know what we're stealing when we steal. So this year there were two $20 bills, lottery tickets, and a random smoothie maker/Hawkeyes doormat that kept going around and around among the men. I started with the smoothie maker, and was glad when someone took it off my hands. I have a smoothie maker and really don't care for a Hawkeye doormat. I then picked a pretty cool gift, a foot massager, but in the end, I pushed hard for the last person to just take mine, and I ended the thing and got a fleece blanket. Dad was excited about that. He's always cold. So I let him take it, and I took the picture frames he ended up with. The game was fun for the first part of it, but this year it really just got ridiculous. I'm going to insist that we revisit our rules for next year.
Finally, we end the night by opening the presents that Grandma gets us, and she opens the presents she got. As soon as the grab bag thing is over, the men go back to the TV. Half of the women go clean up dinner, and the rest of us watches Grandma. Then we go home.
My trochanteric bursi are hurting again, and it's time to go to bed. You'll have to wait patiently until I am able to blog again to find out what the rest of my Christmas Vacation held...
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