Survival Tip #10 (cont.): Spend lots of time with family.
Every Christmas Eve that we spend in WA, we go over to Grandpop and Aileen's for Dinner and fun. The night always begins with Vander and Nate trying to get the toy train to work.
After that dinner begins. Aileen always has a nice dinner for us that normally includes a Christmas Goose, but since no one shot a goose this year we had turkey and roast. Aileen does a lot of her cooking on their wood stove, and June brings some yummy sides down. Have I ever mentioned The Grandparents live next door to Big V and June? A few years after Big V and June built their house the property next door came up for sale and Grandpop and Aileen bought it. ANYWAYS... Christmas Eve is pretty mellow. We sip wassail and eat "Sludge" (Grandpop's fudge), and sing some songs after dinner. We (myself not included...) also try to recite Luke 2 from memory. I need to work on my memorization before another year passes as I mumble through the verses. Aileen plays the trombone and a few grandkids accompany her on various instruments.
Then we try to find our gifts, which are hidden in the tree with our bells.
When we find the bell we sing the first verse of this carol "Ring the Bells". Now, us Corley's are not known for our singing skills, but we try. This year we sang fast which helped. We also open our gifts from Big V's sister Sefia and her family. They always send the guys something hunter-ish and the girls stuff from Sephora, which we LOVE!
This year for Christmas Vander and I gave the grandparents a live raccoon trap. Yes, I did say a live raccoon trap. They actually really seemed to like it! (It's not so much surprising that they liked the trap, but that it can be hard to know what they will like when it comes to any gift).
It's a funny tradition to check up on our National Geographic reading at some point that night, but this year June said she didn't want us to be anti-social reading NG. So when she went up to take dishes back to the house we ran and grabbed the NGs and tried to look as boring as possible :).
This year we rushed off to go to church for a Christmas Eve service of reading scripture and singing songs that went along with that part of the Christmas story. After all this we head back to Big V and June's to open pj's and play a game. Here are the guys and girls this year:
Finally, look for the last Christmas post soon: Christmas Day and Leavenworth!
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