CHRISTMAS: TAKE ONE

A few months ago the world celebrated the birth of our Savior, and so did we. I'd like to say that it took me all this time to recover from the celebration, but it didn't, I'm just 'blog challenged' and just now getting to Christmas.

Christmas happens in 3 actions for us Cardinale's, so here goes.....

TAKE ONE:

The setting for Christmas Eve is at Judy and Gary's house like I've done for all 32 of my Christmas Eve's. Everyone comes over there, and we even spring Gary Lee for a few hours.

(Here is Purdy being as friendly as can be with Gary Lee as she's hoping and praying he drops something yummy!)

Food...we Kish's are all about the food as evidenced by our large guts, except for Shell... I think she's anorexic or adopted.

Gifts....lots of them!

Sounds like the ingredients for a Rockwell painting, doesn't it? Well, let me go a tad further in depth so that you may see all the ways it was so not a Rockwell painting after all.

Food: the star of the show...not so much! We don't eat all day long, so that we can eat all night long until we are so full we feel like we may blow up...well not this year. My mom's co-workers gave her a gift card to Fry's for a Christmas Eve dinner. They didn't want her to have to cook...they obviously don't know that we Kish women don't cook...ever. Anyways, off to Fry's we went to order our ham dinners, potatoes, green bean crap, rolls, and pies. Mom set it all up so when my nephew Andrew was finished working, he cold just stop by the deli and pick it up. We were so excited to see Andrew pull up with our dinner as we were starving, and SURPRISE!!! the dinner is FROZEN! It was not a 'ready to eat dinner'....and we were all ready to eat! So, we microwaved the ham...turned the oven all the way up to cook the potato and green bean crap, and for the first Christmas Eve in my life, we did not eat til we hurt. In fact, some of us didn't eat much. So, Fry's Christmas Eve Dinner = CRAP! Honeybaked Ham Company....we are so sorry we strayed...we will be back next year to order enough to make up for this year! Food only scored a 1 on the scale of 1 to 10.


Gifts: I was so excited for the big gift our kids were going to get! I was also so excited that Santa was going to leave it at Mom and Dad's while the kids went to watch Uncle Gary get on his Dial-A-Ride bus. Cameras were ready when they arrived and all the family was gathered around to see the glorious unwrapping of the Santa gifts and to hear the squeals of joy! Khayle was in awe that the kids could all open the gifts at the same time...usually it goes oldest to youngest or youngest to oldest, so she NEVER gets to open first. They were all weirded out that they could open them together...usually it's one at a time as that assures that we get the best pictures....Anyways, the first gift they unwrapped were suitcases and they were like, 'woo' then inside each suitcase were three little gifts.

(Can ya see the 'woo' here? How about the homeless hair? Awesome!)

They opened the first little gift to find a foam airplane and honestly, they couldn't have looked more disappointed.

(Not a sitch of excitement on her face...awesome again.)

In the second little gift they found Disney Dollars and really didn't care at all.

(Look at the excitement on her little face? What? You don't see it? Me neither!!)

Luggage tags were in the last gift...they had a picture of the Magic Kingdom.

(Man, I don't know how they contained the joy that was leaping from their hearts....)

Now, I was just dying and freaking out waiting for them to figure it out, and they just didn't...so finally with the help of the rest of the family, they figured out we were going to Walt Disney World for 8 days, and they were gonna get to miss school. Lace indulged me with a small squeal of joy, but that was it....very anticlimatic for me.

(Thank you Lace for at least trying to make me feel good...you were my favorite 6 year old that day!)

Gifts were a 10, but the reaction to the gifts was like a -10...except for mine...it's coming up.

(Do you love their fake smiles? Awesome!)

The rest of the evening Andy spent pouting that he obviously was not getting the bigger fish tank on his list, or the futon, or the Play Station 3....I guess he didn't get the memo that we are not made of money and that there is no money tree in our yard nor does money come out of our 'you know what'!

The girls were starting to get excited as the time went on. The gifts that Shell and Ash got the kids were all Disney World and vacation friendly.

I was consoled by my family for the enitre evening as I just wanted to cry because they weren't as excited as I thought they were gonna be. They assured me that when we got to Florida, the kids would be so excited and it would make up for the disappointed reactions.

Best Gift of the Night: was given to me this year by my sister! I did squeal with joy! I got a blankie with a black sheep on it.

(I totally had the best gift reaction, EVER!)

(Isn't this the cutest thing you've ever seen?)

It was from Bath and Body, and I never saw it in the store, so I was totally surprised! It is sooooooo soft and so yummy! I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it! In case any of you are confused why I love black sheep, it is because Shelly is the 'favorite' child of my parents, and I always joke that I'm the black sheep...it's in fun, and I've come to grips with being the black sheep and can now embrace my position as said sheep. Blankie totally gets a 10!

What did I give her you ask? A sweet T-Shirt that says,'Mom Likes Me Best'! But, she is so snooty, she didn't even bother to open it Christmas Eve, and blamed me for 'not handing it to her". Finally, the day AFTER Christmas, she did open it. Hmmm...now that I think about it, I don't know if I've seen her actually wear it yet......

At my insistance, our family took our first ever 'Mormon' family picture. This is not meant in a rude way, it's more of a compliment, I promise. Mormon families always have the most amazing family pictures taken with the parents and all the children and grandchildren. These pictures are always somewhere with a beautiful background, and everyone always look like models. So, we did the best we could being that we're not Mormons and we're not models. I assigned colors to each of us 3 kids and our families.

Gary Lee and his boys were in blue.

(That's Gary Lee in the chair, obviously, and Derek is on the left and Andrew is on the right.)

Shell and her family were in red.

(Adam is on the left, then Shell, then Tobe, then Ash, then Brandon....they are so cute they make me sick....jerks!)

I chose black for my family as I was hoping to look a tad smaller than a refrigerator (it didn't work), and Judy and Gary were in Christmas plaid. I can't find the picture of just us black sheep..I'll have to add it later.

There is one I like better, but again, I can't find it. But this one is OK.

(The black sheep family on the left consists of Laycee, Andy, Tony, me, and Khayle, the reds are Brandon, Ash, Adam, Shell, and Tobe, the blues are Gary Lee, Andrew and Derek, and then the plaid parents, Gary and Judy.)

And then in the 'funny' picture, Gary started it with giving the bird, so we all joined in...it's a sign of love in the Kish household.

Also, the background is the living room because it takes a lot of work to get Gary Lee from place to place. But, all in all I am so pleased with the way it turned out...I have a beautiful family indeed. Shell and I wanted to make sure we had some really good pictures with mom in them as we don't know how many more Christmases she'll be here.

We also took a picture of the original 5 of us...boy has that been a long time, I think last time I was sitting on Gary's lap and he just wouldn't let me this year.....

(How huge are we? I mean, how stinking cute is this? We're all grown up...I'm 32, he's 42, and she's 39.)

It's a 10 for the 'Mormon' family picture!

I don't want to leave out the dogs....they celebrated Christmas too. They weren't in the big picture with all of us because...well just because.

Since Ashley has no babies, she treats her dogs as children. This is Koda Bear modeling her jammies....I'm pretty sure she's thinking swear words....

And, of course there is Thor the gay beagle....don't his jammies just look fabulous?

Finally, there is Purdy....look at that smile! Holy Crap, she's so beautiful! This is her first Christmas with the Kish family. Anyone know a dog orthodontist who want's to practice on her? Purdy is Judy and Gary's puggle. I'm pretty sure they bought her to soften the blow when Critter dies, but clearly, Critter is NEVER going to die, as she is coming up on 16 human years old.

Sorry it's so gross, but I totally told you that Thor is gay.....

The dogs totally rated a 10, I think it was the jammies that helped them rate so high.

Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas Eve...and stay tuned for Take Two that will be coming from the Cardinale living room on Christmas morning.....