allen christmas

the day after christmas we headed down to south bend to see diana's extended family. once again everyone was meeting up at uncle arnold and aunt nancy's place. this time there werent a bunch of chairs and tables set up for us all to dig into a huge dinner, instead it was a time to gather around and share gifts! diana's cousins kristy and fernando were there with their little girl lucy, who of course stole all the attention she could get! there were a bunch of gifts for little lucy to open, which she loved, and then we went straight into the white elephant gifts. this family has a strong tradition of white elephant gifts, among them are a couple of coconuts from hawaii that are carved to look like apes. they are hideous, which i think is the point... the goal is to try and avoid getting the coconuts, because then you have to return them the next year and try to avoid them again... most of the family members really get into it and have a ball! of course, aunt nancy doesnt quite understand it and seems to think all these tacky and ugly gifts are quite lovely, and she would gladly use each and every one of them! after the gifts we hung out for a bit and aunt becky brought up an idea for a fun game to play. we get into two groups and pick cards that have one word on it. each group then needs to sing a song with that word in it. this goes back and forth until one group runs out of songs with the word in it. it was a blast trying to come up with all kinds of different songs with one random word in it! the uncles really got into it- their competitive nature kicking in! after a great day of singing, laughs, and snacks; diana and i said our goodbyes and headed back home exhausted from the fantastic christmas weekend we had with both of our families.
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