Grandma's Christmas party 2008

Tonight was my mom's annual christmas party. (we do it early to avoid conflicts closer to Christmas, plus it starts the season off right)

we had dinner.

and sang some songs until SANTA came!

everyone is ALWAYS excited he is there.

Joy especially.

anyway. everyone got a turn to sit on Santa's lap if they wanted to.

Peyton, age 10

Liberty age 9

Paxton age 7 + 11 months.

Joy age 6

Hope age 4

Pierce (age 2) was leary of Santa.

happy enough to say hi. but sitting on his lap? HECK NO!

even i sat on Santa's lap. for the blog.
but took the picture off since i just can't handle posting one of me.

(can i just say I'm hating myself in pictures these days. HATING THEM.)

Then we had the family talent show, which was slim pickings, with only one family prepared to share a talent.

BUT , not just one, but TWO of my kids volunteered to burp for their talent.

yes it was a proud moment.

Joy said she could burp 20 times in a row .

and Peyton said he could burp REALLY LOUD (but he needed soda to perform)

and grandma kind of shot that idea down. since it wasn't a polite or holiday themed talent. she did say if they learned to burp a christmas tune they could totally do it . so apparently we need to practice that. for next year.

Joy and Liberty did get up and sing "Santa baby" (a song from their singing group)

but my camera didn't record it, when i thought it was. BUMMER.

you'll have to wait until their singing group performance.

then grandma handed out her christmas presents to everyone.

we are all now on the "cutting edge"

this is the journal part for my future reference- skip to the questions.

she gave pocket knives to all the boys,

and the girls all got enameled handled Gingher scissors.

the men got 10" knife edge bent trimmers?( apparently they are great for cutting leather? )

and the mom's got embroidery scissors.

that matched one of our daughters.

mine have red,white and blue flag printed handles that matched Liberty's big sewing shears.

and Joy got flowered ones. Hope's were just plain. so we know whose is whose.

i need to confiscate the boys knives. Peyton already cut his finger cutting a grape fruit out front.

and i'm hoarding the girls scissors. so the don't ruin them cutting paper.

then we sang more songs. and the kids played for a little bit.

we looked at some christmas lights on the way home.
(it's one of our traditions to drive around and look at christmas lights every night) we love really nicely done lights and really tacky ones.

QUESTIONS:

what are some of your family holiday traditions?

christmas lights? what are your favorite kind to see?

if you were going to do a talent at a party what would you or your family do?

do you sit on Santa's lap when given the chance?

how many christmas parties have you been to so far? we've been to 2 already since thanksgiving :)