In the jungle, the mighty jungle...

The lion sleeps tonight...

 OK... he's not really a lion, but BooBoo shaves him up to look like one...

Duke decided that if his bed was going to be hijacked by Midas that he would just take over BooBoo's lap instead...

This is waaaaaay better than a stoopid dog bed...

He was so excited about all the lovin' that he wouldn't sit still for a good picture...

So, I went to the parental's for Christmas Eve and took RR (way easier to type out than Railroad) and Dizzy with me. We ate. We played. We laughed. We cried... OK, the losing team did anyway.

And these weren't just silly games. There were high stakes involved. We played a game called "Catch-phrase" which is a lot like Hot-potato. If you are the one left holding the device when the timer ran out you had to eat a jelly bean. I know, doesn't sound too ominous. However, these were no ordinary jelly beans. They had good flavors and bad flavors. You could get strawberry, blueberry, caramel corn and such... or you could get dog food, barf, moldy cheese or centipede. And let me tell you, El Dub got the centipede and he had to leave the room to go spit it out it was that foul... and really funny to watch.

Later my niece and nephews got to open one gift. The youngest, who is around 2, had a complete melt-down when the resulting pajamas were not Iron Man themed... After all, who wants to wear stoopid reindeer pajamas when you could be wearing Iron Man?

Then it was time for RR and Dizzy to head back to the coast and for all the other sibs not staying at the Parental's to go to their own abodes. And then the frantic wrapping began...

The wrapping war zone...

Thankfully the mess was contained to only one room. The rest of the house was spared...

Then it was time to sleep (my personal favorite) and wait for Santa to arrive. I pulled couch duty...

Flip flop waiting for the impending emotional and physical assault about to take place...

 

Let the festivities begin...

BooBoo, Cracker and T waiting for the crowds to arrive...

My sis-in-law who found out she's expecting a boy in June...

More present opening and mass chaos...

Flip flop watching the mass destruction of her house...

BooBoo and Cracker...

I've decided that toy designers have a great sense of humor...

 Look at the size of those hands!!

Flip flop sporting the second best gift of the day...

Then came the best part of the day. After the masses left it was just me, Flip flop and El Dub, BooBoo and her bf Cracker and my little bro T. We were opening a few more gifts and then we got to the end of that and then Cracker went to get one last gift for BooBoo...

Earlier this year, Cracker bought my sis a new Apple laptop for her birthday (which was in November) and Christmas. Ever since he bought it he has been wrapping it back up and giving it to her again and again. So, when Cracker ran upstairs to grab the last gift we all started laughing.

So, she opened the present and then preceded to hold up her "new" computer. She took it out of the case and was wondering out loud if it was used and laughing all the while. Then, Cracker told her to open up the laptop, which she did... And the look on her face was priceless. On the computer screen was a cartoon of Cracker holding a ring with a cartoon of BooBoo and then a big question mark after it. She was totally speechless. Then Cracker got down on one knee and brought out the ring and said "So, what do you think?". 

I, being the hopeless romantic that I am, cried. 

BooBoo, once getting over her shock, said yes.

And now my little sis is engaged to a pretty spectacular guy.

Just look at the size of that rock...

After all that excitement, it was time for me to head back to the coast and have a yummy turkey din-din with RR and his family. The food was awesome and I felt very welcome... 

And then we opened gifts. It was a lot of fun. RR got me a fabulous glass float blown especially for me with all these beautiful colors. I got him a nice Columbia jacket that he hasn't taken off since he got it.

So, the only thing missing from this Christmas was the kitchen sink...

Which I later found on the beach...

All in all, one of the best Christmases ever!!