Christmas Tree and Game Night

I had planned out our Saturday to the minute because it was going to be very very busy.  I waited to get our Christmas tree this weekend because Ben could come with us.  We've been dating for three Christmases now and he hadn't gotten to come with us on any trips.  This year he was able to however, due to being on shift the night before and a fire at 4 a.m., he was very tired and couldn't managed to get motivated to get ready and head out to my house before noon.  There was part of the day which I had no idea what he was doing or if he was on his way yet or not...turns out he had fallen asleep twice throughout the day of waiting for him.

I finally got a hold of him and grandma and I just went and got the tree without him, he wasn't even close of being ready to go for the weekend.  Maybe next year it will work out.  I got my tree-getting outfit on and went and got grandma.  We weren't sure if we would find out Douglas Firs at the Gerrits house because last year there was slim pickins and it takes a few years for the trees to mature.  We were one of the four sets of cars that showed up to get trees.  Lynn and Greg recognized it was us and started chatting with us for a while about the usual stuff.

Then we went and searched for two Douglas Firs and they were hard to find but we did find them.  I cut down both trees while grandma made sure they didn't fall on top of me.  We grabbed them both and took them towards the Escape.  We chatted a little bit more with Lynn and Greg, grabbed some hot chocolate and candy canes and paid for the trees.  They then helped us tie them down on top of my car.  We thanked them and headed home as soon as we could.  I had a lot of stuff to do still.

I dropped of grandma and her tree and headed home expecting to see Ben's car in my driveway.  I did not and I was kinda upset he wasn't there yet.  Where was he?  I tried calling him again and finally got a hold of him the second time.  He said he fell asleep again.  Ugh, we were going to be late.  I got the tree off my car and then unloaded my car full of the stuff I've had in the back of it for months.  Then I grabbed everything we would need for our Christmas party at Nicole's, his mom's house and the Korum party on Sunday.  I had mom help me cut up the potatoes for the scalloped potatoes I was suppose to bring.  I didn't have time for a shower and smelled like campfire smoke.

Ben finally got to my house, we loaded his stuff up in the Escape and headed towards Nicole's house, we were about 20 minutes late.  We unloaded everything and brought it into the house.  We got all settled in and put our stuff in the oven while Nicole had us play a quick game.  Basically a minute to win it type game.  We had these boxes that were tied around our waist and we had to shake the candy coal out.  First one to shake them out or the most after a minute wins.  I will post the video soon.

We laughed our heads off as we battled against each other.  The final round contained me and Nicole and she edged me out by milliseconds.  The prize was candy.  I was okay with not winning, lol.  From there, we ate dinner.  Nicole made a roast and a ham, I brought scalloped potatoes, there was a dip, veggies, meatballs and cookies.  We brought our own drinks.  Food was delicious.

After dinner and a small clean up, we embarked on our gingerbread house journey.  I haven't made one of these since I lived with Jessie back in 2007.  Almost a week ago I was with mom shopping in town and decided to go to Winco to get graham crackers, frosting and bulk candy.  I intended on sharing with everyone.  We all couldn't sit at the table so we all sat at two tables.  My table used frosting while the other table used the gingerbread house glue that Megan made.  I went all out.  I slathered the fudge frosting on my graham crackers and built a two story house.  Then I added all of my candy.  I made my roof to heavy and it collapsed before I could take a picture of it.  Oh well, the point was to have fun and be creative.  I deemed it the earthquake house.

We cleaned up and played Christmas Jeopardy and I swear Celeste was cheating.  She knew all of the answers basically.  I guess I need to watch more Christmas movies.  We did our White Elephant gift exchange and got a bunch of wine stuff...it was probably the gift that Nicole should have opened.  Oh well.  I will find a way to re-gift it at some point.

Megan, Matt and Miles had to go home but we stayed a little later and played some Christmas Cards of Humanity and got to know this Brian guy a little more.  Just before 11 we gathered our stuff and headed towards Ben's mom's house.  We got there just before midnight and everyone was still up.  We sat around and chatted for a while and I had to go pass out.  I was exhausted.

Next Adventure:  Browns at Seahawks, Korum Christmas Party and Star Wars