Gerber Christmas

Saturday was our family Christmas with my side of the family! I took the big kids over to my parents' place around 130, and Dave brought Eva over after her nap. Around 4:00 we did gifts with allllll the kids, and then everyone put their kids to bed. Dave brought Dom & Emilia back home where we had sitters for them while they slept. Eva went down at Mom & Dad's no problem (for the first time that week) and I was basically on a parenting break the entire day! 

Everything went really really well. I mean it was chaotic, but it could have been much worse! No major meltdowns from Dom & Emilia, lots of joy and good food and good wine. I alternated a glass of wine, a glass of water, etc. It kept me responsible and headache-free the next morning!

One of the highlights of the night was when Emilia was gifted her doll house. She's been asking for a doll house for 6 months, and Mom bought one of the Kid Kraft ones on Marketplace for her. It's humungous. She opened a gift of all the doll furniture, and an Anna and Elsa barbie doll, and then we snuck the doll house down from upstairs. When she saw it her reaction was so pure. She screeched and leapt into Oma's lap and yelled, "IT'S MY OWN DOLLHOUSE!" I was not the only one with tears in my eyes after that haha. She was all in playing with that thing after that. Eventually opening up to sharing with Dom. 

All the kids were spoiled. Lots of second-hand gifts which I actually love. I was able to get way more for my nephews and niece because I wasn't spending $50 on one little toy. 

After kids were in bed, the parents stayed up and played games. We alternate years between drawing names and doing gifts, and playing games for charity. Everyone put in whatever amount of money they wanted, and we did a tournament of games with the winner getting to donate the funds to the charity of their choice. 

Game #1 was Salad Bowl which is always a great time! Next the winning half played Crazy Dice. The top two from that game played a best of 3 tournament of "sling puck" which is a hilarious and quick game! Aly won and donated to the same charity I was going to donate to, so I guess I kind of won too (minus the tax receipt). Pacific Post Partum Support Society got a nice donation via the Gerber family Christmas!

Out of order Christmas photo dump!

I forgot to mention, Mom & Dad got us all matching jammies. All 16 of us! Haha. We felt like a Hallmark movie. It was very cute and colourful

Miss Emilia got some Frozen nail polish (or "nailish polish" as she calls it) and some lip gloss. She feels very fancy.

I was in charge of sourdough, and I wanted to make it festive.

Turned out even better than I expected!

Opa's bucket is full. Emilia crawled up onto the couch and right into his lap with no prompting. She rarely seeks out cuddles like this!

Opa & Oma popped by for a visit too!

Scott turned my loaf into this beautiful creation. So delicious

I can hardly believe we got such a nice group family photo with just using a phone timer! Trick of the trade this time around was to put another phone with cartoons on right beneath it haha!

Dave's mom pointed out that he must be a veteran dad, holding his baby with just one arm haha!

Can you imagine how nuts next Christmas will be?

Madness!

Jeff & Marta get Mom & Dad an ornament every year.

So much food! These were sweet potato skins

It's that big...

B52 shot

Salad bowl! Everyone writes 5(ish) things on pieces of paper. Can be anything. Random objects, movie quotes, whatever you want. Split into two teams, alternating around the circle. 1, 2, 1, 2, etc. 

Round 1: 1 minute to go through as many papers as possible with your team trying to guess exactly what it says. You can use whatever words you want as long as they're not on the paper (Taboo style). Calculate how many you got after the minute is up and add to your point total. Pass the bowl to the next person and keep going until the bowl is empty.

Round 2: Everything goes back in the bowl. 1 minute to go through as many papers as possible, but this time you can not use any words - just actions (charades style). Pass it on after your minute is up and go again until the bowl is empty.

Round 3: Everything back in the bowl one last time. Again, 1 minute to get through as many papers as possible. This time, you can only say ONE word as your clue. It's amazing how well people guess and remember from the previous rounds. If you panic and say "um", that's your word and you're hooped. 

Every turn you're allowed one toss-back to get a different paper. 

I had to act out "Title of your sex tape" at one point. Fun times haha!

Sling puck! A little sling shot to try to get all the pucks onto the opponent's side. Once that's done, game is over!

On Sunday I spent the large majority of the day building Dom's Lego airport with him. It's grand. We did it! Emilia played lots with her doll house, and then Mom & Dad came for meatball dinner followed by a crisp Christmas walk around the neighbourhood. 

Finished part 1!

Dad and I tried some of my birthday Empress Gin from Jeff & Marta. Tasty AND pretty!

Today is a quiet home day for me, except we may go to a park with Aunty Ashleigh and Phoebe shortly! Dave is working, and then we have a vet appointment for Sherlock at 330. Not sure what's going on with him. Since Saturday he's been very lethargic and weird. Having a hard time getting on the couch, couldn't get on our bed... He's eating and drinking normally with normal digestive functions. Anyway something is clearly bothering him, but hopefully we can figure it out today and get him back to normal asap!

Poor puppers :(