Christmas Gems

We had a very merry Christmas! Sunday we had dinner and opened presents with my parents, my brother Jim and his family, as well as with my sister Karyn. Here are some of the priceless pictures from that family gathering...

This is one of my favorite pictures! My dad had pinched his finger on a present and it was luckily caught on film. I love that my mom is oblivious! It's just a classic picture.

Here's Jim and his family looking rather normal...Here's Mom and Dad next to their Juniper Christmas tree. (This tree is artificial and one of the lamest trees I've ever seen. It's super tall and skinny and I made fun of my parents all night for buying such a lame tree. It has giant gaps between the branches! It looks better in the pictures than in real life though.)

My Dad with his favorite child...

Another favorite photo... Jim getting whacked in the head by his son with a giant pencil!

Joni - the victim of the whipped cream fight!For Christmas Eve we invited my parents and Karyn over for dinner. My mom pulled out one of her Mom-isms at dinner when she said that I was "skiing on thin water." What? That's right. We ended up playing a rousing game of Trivial Pursuit Pop Culture Edition where I falsely accused my Dad of hating Wayne Newton! (You had to be there.) At one point, I also confidently yelled the answer, "Miss Chloe!" on a video question when the real answer was "Miss Cleo." The boys team stole that point from us - dang it. This picture wins for ugliest of the season. How is it that we both blinked at the same time? Karyn and I look like sleep walkers or zombies. We've come to eat your brain!

That's better...
On Christmas we slept in and then opened our presents. Here's Angelo's new sweatshirt! If you don't know what it means you're lucky. That means you are not a nerd.The cats loved Christmas! We went to Angelo's parent's house for Christmas dinner and wow was that an experience. They lack what you call a "sense of humor" so it was not very fun. We had gotten Angelo's dad this flying monkey that screams when you fling it across the room and when I launched it across the room the only noise that could be heard was the sound of the screaming monkey. There was no laughter. It was one of those extremely awkward moments. Who doesn't think a flying monkey is funny???? After our fun-filled present opening fiasco we had dinner. At one point when me and Angelo were the only one's left at the dinner table I leaned over and asked him if he knew where any pencils were. He replied, "Why, you want to jam one in your eye?" I said, "Yep, that wouldn't be as painful as this visit." Notice there are no pictures posted from the evening. That's because no one takes pictures at the Outlaw's house. If you whip out a camera they look at you like you have horns growing out of your head. Apparently, there is no reason to take pictures of the family gatherings - it's not like it's Christmas or anything!!! I did have one moment of joy though. I went to the bathroom just to silently scream and wave my arms in the air and let out some aggression. Then I saw that the toilet paper roll was loaded the "wrong" way. So I turned it the "right" way and that made me smile. (My mother-in-law prefers it the "wrong" way and she will notice that is has been changed.) So the visit wasn't a total bust. Merry Christmas!