Christmas eve is always a busy day for the Wilbanks family. For lunch we go to my great-grandmother's (Gran Gran's). This year we had 28 people come (we had all of the cousins
there plus 2 husbands and 2 boyfriends) and it was an interesting time as usual. After lunch we played dirty Santa (which takes a while with that many people) and then took the party out back for a little skeet shooting. We quickly ran out of skeets after everyone had taken several turns, and moved on to shooting jugs off the fence post. This activity took up a good hour or so, and was good to get us all out of that tiny house. Bridgett impressed us all with her aim when she knocked the jug off the post on the first try! I think she even surprised herself, because she chose to quit while ahead and refused to try again.
After our target practice, great-aunt Leonel wanted us all to get back to the house for the traditional family photo. When we piled back into the house,
great-uncle Hugh had his karaoke machine fired up and was taking requests! I signed Bridgett up to grace us with a thrilling rendition of "Achy Breaky Heart" by none other than our favorite mullet sporting country singer Billy Ray Cyrus! Entertaining is an understatement. Next up was Chelsey's husband, Jake. His song of choice was Conway Twitty's "I'd Love to Lay you Down". He even threw in a few line dancing moves, and hit every note! After his brilliant show, Bridgett and I dazzled the crowd with our Shania-like skills and performed "Man! I Feel Like a Woman"! I don't know that I've seen Gran Gran laugh that much since we explained to her what a shart was, and I can guarantee that the whole family enjoyed the show. As much fun as that was, I regret to inform you that my grandmother took video footage of all performances, and will most certainly blackmail us with this evidence in the future. However, I don't fear for myself so much as I pity whoever has the misfortune to someday view this tragic display of sober karaoke. We all made great attempts to postpone the family picture time, but as usual we lost the battle. Leonel shut down th
e karaoke fest and told us all to line up. After 25 years, I've learned the best thing to do is line up fast, keep smiling, and maybe everyone else will do the same so it won't take half an hour. Once the family picture was taken, the party moved to Pucky's (my dad's mom).
Several years ago we decided that we always eat way too much when we get together for holidays, so instead of the traditional Christmas feast (AGAIN) we started making snack foods and dips to eat at Pucky's. Of course, that just means that I will still eat more snacks, but it's a nice change up from the same ole same ole. We played more dirty santa, drank a little wine, ate our snacks, and played cards. My family plays a card game called Shanghai that I can never seem to win, and the game takes 40 years to play. It's always a good time hangin with that side of the family!
On Christmas morning, we woke up to SNOW!!! I can't remember the last time we actually had a white Christmas (where the snow actually stuck to the ground). Once I had a chance to wake up and realize that it was still snowing, I made Stephanie get out of
bed so we could go play in the snow!!! After we suited up in our "winter" gear, we hit the snow running (or falling in my case). We made 2 snowmen, had a snowball fight, sled down the hill, and played with Steph's new puppy. Dad came out to play with us, and we had a great time. After working up a good appetite, we went inside and mom had Christmas breakfast on the table! The final Christmas stop was my mom's parents for the weekend. They were very excited when we gave them 2 new recliners for their present this year!!! After church this morning, we loaded up and made our way back home.
The past couple of days have been packed full of activity. Tomorrow I will probably go crazy around the house with nothing to do, but then again, I only have 3 days before I have to pack up and hit the road again. Wednesday I will be heading to Birmingham to meet up with Jordan so we can go to New Orleans for New Years Eve, and I will leave from there to get back to work. 2010 has been a blast so far, can't wait to see what the last week has in store!
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