Christmas Vacation - Part 1

Oh the long post I have been avoiding. The day before Christmas Eve, all of the family in town was going to go to Bellingrath Gardens to see their Christmas lights. It's a walk through park so I was a little weary of that since I can't walk as far as I used to but after spending 30 minutes in traffic trying to park, and then walking a half mile to the gate, we were greeted with a MASSIVE LINE to get into the gate. We soon found out that it was an hour and half wait just to buy your tickets!!! No way. The walk through was going to be difficult enough and there was no way I could stand in line for that long. So we opted to head back to the house and play dominoes and eat Christmas treats. Here's me and dad on our half mile walk back to the car.
The next morning, Papa woke up early and made his famous Christmas Eve Pancakes...Delicious!!!
We all went out to run errands before our annual Christmas Eve seafood dinner which consisted of fried crab claws, seafood gumbo, oyster bisque, shrimp scampi along with several other side dishes. It was excellant!! Hats off to Dad and my Nanny for a fabulous dinner.


After all of the dinner crowd trickled out, our immediate family exchanged gifts. I recieved some jewelry, scarves, dishes, books, soaps, and so much more. E got 2 magazine subscriptions, some Wii points, a knife, some movies and much more I can't think of. The baby got some books and toys and Maggie thought it was Christmas since we allowed her to eat all of the wrapping paper left on the floor. Here I am showing off my new scarf with my aunt.
Dad recieved a singing and dancing Santa for his office. Maggie wasn't sure about him. She stayed far away and never took her eyes off of him.

Since my sister is pregnant, I gave her a book that I fell in love with long ago called "What Not to Name Your Kids." So after all was cleaned up, my sisters and mom sat around in the living room laughing to tears about how accurate our names were defined in that book.

Christmas morning, Papa made his famous breakfast burritos for breakfast and then me and E left to head north to be with his family for the rest of the holiday (which will be detailed in part 2 tomorrow). But before we left, the family was insistant that we needed to compare bellies again.