We're home, happy, tired and back to our daily routines already.
MFB's family numbers more than mine and rather than every person exchanging a gift with everyone we have what I refer to as a "Gift Fight". It's a lot of fun. How it works is everyone brings a $20 gift, then we draw numbers. The first person opens a gift, the second person has the choice of "stealing" the gift or choosing one from the pile. The next person can steal any gift or open one and so on. If your gift is stolen you can steal or open another and any gift can be stolen only twice. The first year we brought a gift that was the hit of the party and everyone wanted it. When all was said and done an email with a picture of the victor reclining in his "chair in a bag" with a beer in his head was sent tauntingly to his sister at least once or twice through the year. As I say, great fun. At the end you have a party with a lot of strategy, teasing and memories. Here's a
picture or two of one of this years gifts - click
on the pictures to make larger if you dare. May I introduce you to the Mooning Santa. He was NOT the most coveted prize. OK maybe he was!
The gift I brought was a
small water fountain. I thought for sure at least two people might have wanted it - one in particular. This would have been a sure bet last year, however her guy surprised her with her dream of an Aquarium which I think they said was a 130 gallon TANK. As MFB said - you could swim in it. I filed this miscalculation under "Go big or stay home".
The gift I took home was something I was iffy about when I tore into the wrapping. However, this is my second evening reclining with it. It's a inexpensive
massage chair pad with heat (the link is an expensive one). The massage and the heat works. Pretty darn nice gang, thanks!!!
It was a great visit. All the "kids" are growing up and only one is still in high school. One of the kids was out in Alberta for several months this year and he's home now. One of the other kids is going out to Vancouver in a couple of weeks so it was so good to see everyone so happy in a time of transition. I'm feeling old all of a sudden.
We did have a little drama though. We only have one large tin of
Tim Hortons coffee left. We left our shopping for Timmy's too late. On Christmas Eve I left MFB while he was getting fitted for
a new pair of hockey skates one of his Christmas presents and headed out to pick up one of the boys. Now any of you Canadians reading this know Tim Hortons closes up around 3:00pm on Christmas Eve and doesn't open till Boxing Day. Even with my contact at Tim's I couldn't get even a small tin of
gold coffee. OH NO!! We had a happy ending, though. On our drive home on Christmas Day our research told us there was one Duty Free that would be open for currency exchange and GST rebate and we knew there was a Timmy's there. It was OPEN, they had large tins of coffee. All is right with the world and we got everything (except my family) we wanted for Christmas.
Message to MFB : See what happens when you wear your Toronto Maple Leafs sweater? Your team beats the Minnesota Wild!!
Labels: Christmas, Tim Hortons