Jodee had her second surgery on the Monday after Christmas, so our plan was to do our Christmas Eve Party on Tuesday the 28th and then Christmas morning on Wednesday the 29th so Jodee could be there. Unfortunately, they did not let her out of the hospital after her surgery because she had other health complications. We wanted to wait for Jodee, but Hector had to go back to work on Thursday and he, of course, wanted and needed to be there for Christmas morning. Jodee was scheduled to fly home on Thursday, so this ended up being the last day we could postpone. We were sad that Jodee still had to miss it; it would have been more fun with her.
We did some cooking in the morning and then I spent the afternoon with Jodee at the hospital. When I got back, we did our Christmas Eve Dinner. Sienna made the rainbow Jell-O this year! Natalia made shrimp scampi and we had crab cakes and cheddar corn and a fancy drink. But the girls were most excited about the games.
We started with the guessing gifts. We were all super full from dinner, so we decided to go for a walk and take some of the gifts with us. The girls and Hector asked questions while we walked and if they guessed correctly, they opened it and I handed them a new gift from one of my many coat pockets. It was a fun way to get the game started and it may be a new tradition for us.
We finished the guessing gifts when we got back home. Sienna has decided that she is not very good at this game. Estelle got all the best gifts this year. It is random, but it seems that every year one person makes out way better than everyone else.
Then we moved on to the cellophane ball. This is everyone's favorite. We recorded the whole thing this year. I also added a new element this year. We called them freeze cards. If you got to a card in the ball, you had to stop and do whatever the card said. Some were silly, like sing karaoke to your favorite Christmas song, or say, "Ho Ho Ho, Merry Christmas" in a Santa voice. Some were simple like switch directions and some were good like swap a gift with someone or steal a present. Pop Rocks and Ring Pops were the coveted gifts that came from the ball. Sienna was so excited to have Pop Rocks and then Estelle got the swap a gift freeze card. She traded a penny for Sienna's Pop Rocks. It was pretty funny. Sienna was devastated and but ended up getting a $5.00 bill from the ball. She didn't realize she could get lots of Pop Rocks for $5.00.
After our games we watched a movie and then set our stockings for Santa and went to bed. It was a great little evening. Hector and I stayed up a bit longer after the girls went to bed, but we were all excited for Second Christmas Morning to come.
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