Legal Smorgasbord: National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation

If you haven't seen Christmas Vacation then you need to stop what you are doing and run out to the video store this instant. It is one of the funniest Christmas movies ever made. And at our house (or rather, my parent's house) it has been a tradition to watch it every Christmas season. Unfortunately, as I've gotten older and spread my wings we are becoming a little slack on that tradition. However, what we lack in watching the actual movie, we make up for in acting it out throughout our own Christmas Vacation montage. Complete with the squirrel jumping out of the Christmas tree. Ok, so that's being a little overly dramatic. But, I'm sure everyone reading this knows what I'm talking about. Each family has it's own little Christmas drama I'm sure. What would the holidays be without it?! Anyway, we had a great Christmas this year at my parent's house. The in-laws came over and celebrated as well so we were one big happy family (more room for drama don't you think? j/j) But all in all, it turned out to be a good time with only a pinch of drama sprinkled in.

We arrived in Pensacola on December 24th and set off to McQuire's for a tasty Christmas Eve meal. Delicious! Afterwards, I had wanted to go look at Christmas lights (another holiday tradition) but was poo-pooed. (This is where some of that drama was sprinkled). So instead we headed home. We all opened one present and then headed off to bed so that Santa would not pass us by. I tried to convince my parents we needed to leave the lights on outside so that Santa would be able to find us through the dense fog, but that idea was poo-pooed as well. So I went to bed hoping that Rudolph's nose would truly be able to guide him through the snow, er, fog.

Christmas morning Jeremy and I woke up just as the parents were about to stick the dogs on us. Holiday spirit my butt. Hmph! But luckily we beat them to the punch and were headed downstairs just as the dogs were running up. Whew! We had mimosas and holiday eatery complete with cinnimon rolls (another tradition - the one that adds pounds to the waistline!) And then we proceeded to open presents .... for FOUR HOURS! Yes, we are a slow bunch. But there are a lot of coffee breaks, bathroom breaks (with all the coffee and mimosas, who can blame one's bladder?), and of course the fact that only one person at a time may be opening a gift. Everyone else is obligated to watch and "ooh" and "ahh" at the appropriate times. Yes, this is another tradition and I will not break it! After all was said and done, everyone walked away with some pretty good loot. Mr. Daniell received his lob wedge that he'd been wanting; Mrs. Daniell received the toaster oven she'd not-so-subtly left hints about; Dad received booku golf shirts - a great gift since he practically lives on the course since retiring; Mom received booku books - also great because she can read a book in about a week. Oh she also received Mamma Mia - which we promptly tortured Jeremy with by making him sit down and watch it; Jeremy received his cordless drill and a new golf bag; and I received the best gifts of all: my new AWESOME camera lens AND Sugar Bowl tickets!!!!!! What more could a girl ask for?!? So yes, it was a pretty lucrative Christmas.

And we didn't go without food either. There was plenty of that to go around and, as always, it was delicious! We went to bed fat and happy!

Some pics of the family.
A family portrait:

Another version of the family portrait:

One of the furbabies waiting to open their stockings:

Friday the boys played golf (Jeremy's dad coudn't wait to use his wedge, dad got to wear one of his new golf shirts, and Jeremy put his new golf bag to good use), while the girls hung around the house and watched movies and played with the dogs. That night good friends Stephanie and Brian came over for dinner and after we were all fat and full again, we played pictionary. Talk about a fun game! The first round we had 2 teams of 3 people. Of course my team lost. How could we compete with an art teacher (mom) and a couple who played this every Friday night for like a decade?!? (slight exaggeration, but still....) So then we split into 3 teams of 2 people - making sure to separate the married Stephanie and Brian. Mom and I ended up on a team and after a looooooong four hours (yes you read that right) of playing we smoked everyone else. Good times were had by all - except maybe Jeremy and Brian, who were a team and ended up very frustrated at the end. Jeremy poo-pooed my idea of buying the game. :-( But little does he know that I intend to buy it anyway. Hehehe.

Saturday. Well, Saturday is when the drama creeped back into the scenario. So we will skip Saturday. Except to say that we headed to dad's park (yes, according to some people, he really IS that important!) and played with the dogs. Then we took them swimming in the bay. It was a pretty DOGone good day. Hehehe.

Dad's Park: