Jolly

Our house was filled with much laughter and good cheer on CHRISTmas morning.

It truly is better to give than receive, but the receiving part is fun, too!

The youngest Smithling decided to have some fun with her gift giving. Millie Girl used her hard-earned money wisely, and managed to purchase everyone a thoughtful gift. Our daughter's true creativity was shown by how she wrapped each of those gifts. 

Each family member was assigned a band member from her favorite group, One Direction. Yep, we were temporarily transformed into Niall, Harry, Zayn, and Liam. Millie was Louis, naturally. Her gift tags had only the image of the band member that we were representing, if that makes sense. Our real names were not on the gifts at all. Part of the fun was guessing who we were. I was Harry, which means that I am loved! (Harry is a close second to Louis...)

Yikes! I guess my daughter is turning into me. Ever since the Smithlings were wee ones, I have never put names on their Christmas packages. I never wanted to encourage the kids to compare the size of boxes under the tree to see who had the biggest gift. Nor did I want them trying to figure out what gift they were receiving in advance of Christmas Day.

I used to come up with elaborate alpha/numeric codes for each Smith kid. The code is simply written on the bottom corner of the package. 

There were a few times that I made an error in deciphering the code, but mistakes got resolved before the gift landed in the wrong recipient's hands. Whew!

This year, I decided to number each gift with the numbers 1 to 3, where 1=Oldest and 3=Youngest. Obviously 2=Middlest! It seemed too obvious, but no one even noticed.

So, what's with the Justin Beiber posters? Along with our real gift, each of us were given a poster of the Beibs. Justin Beiber has never been one of Millie's favs. She didn't want to waste her supply of One D. posters on us, so we got the rejects. We all thought it was pretty funny. 

No, there aren't any Beliebers in this household, so no one has hung a Bieber poster on any walls. 

Kindling?

 The purrfect gift?

 Much happiness! I guess she got what she wanted.

My youngest has a fashion sense that is...well...ummm...unique? She has an awesome sense of humor, too! I would have never thought of wearing riding boots with Victoria's Secret jammies AND running shorts. I'm sure this look would turn some heads. Louis appears to be impressed.

On the 26th, we loaded the sleigh and headed to Indiana for more family fun.

Oh, dear! I shot G-pa and his (rein)deer grandkids. You see the family resemblance, right?

 Obviously, we all got the memo about the "color of the day."

Oh, the games people play!
Quelf is a very silly game. And these people are pretty silly, too.

The Christmas "undecorating" at my Dad's house got underway, as we were blessed with a warmish afternoon. This unseasonably warm weather proved to be the calm before the next winter storm.

One of the most thoughtful gifts I received this year was a family cookbook that my sister compiled, edited, and published. Each family member had to submit at least one recipe along with a story about their submission. This book not only has lots of good recipes, but it also has lots of family history.

So, what's with all the cookies? To honor my Aunt Eileen, I made "her" peanut butter cookies topped with Brach's Chocolate Stars. I have fond memories of finding these cookies in my aunt's cookie jar. I love peanut butter and chocolate together, especially in the form of a soft, delicious cookie.  I was always amazed that my cousins actually had cookies around long enough to place in a cookie jar. At our house, cookies were pretty much devoured as soon as they came out of the oven. As you can see, the chocolate stars are smaller than Hershey's Kisses. They add just the right amount of chocolate to the mix. My seester even made a special trip to Walgreen's to purchase these not-so-easy-to-find candies, just so I could have a tasty walk down memory lane. SWEET!

Can you tell that I like snowflake ornaments? 

On New Year's Day, the slow, painful process of taking down the tree began. Sigh. 

Everything is all packed away until November 2014. I'll be ready and waiting. And, of course, as I'm decorating the house, I'll be devising my next secret "gift giving" code.