So on Christmas Eve we always get together with Curt's side of the family and do our certain traditions with each other. First we have dinner which is usually pizza or something easy since the next day usually includes a big lunch or dinner. Then we do white elephants. This is Curt's dad giving us, for the first time, the background of why it's called a white elephant. I guess it came from back in like India or somewhere that they used elephants that a white elephant was considered royal (or something like that). So if someone gave you a white elephant it was of no use to you because you couldn't make it work for you. So it cost you more to keep the white elephant because you had to feed it and take care of it but it could give nothing back to you in the way of earning you money or working for you. So that's where the term "white elephant" came from. I thought that was interesting. I never knew that before nor did I ever think about where the term came from.
Another tradition is to do the Nativity. Curt's mom has all the costumes for the kids to dress up in and Grandpa usually reads the Christmas Story from Luke and the kids come marching in when it's their turn. Shelby was Mary, Kaylee was the angel, Carson was a wise man and Austin was the donkey but he refused to wear the hat that has a donkey on it. So that's as good as it got for him.
After that came Carson's favorite part...opening up the traditional PJs from Grandma and Grandpa. His were Buzz Lightyear ones.
Of course Shelby's favorite part of her pajamas was the shirt which says, "All that matters is me," and she'll admit that that's true.
Kaylee liked hers because they were pink and girlie, just like her!
Unfortunately, Grandma had already given me Austin's unbeknownst to her so he didn't have a present to open but he was unaware of that fact since he's only 2 and really didn't know what was going on. But when we got home that night we put him in his PJs from Grandma and just like everyone else he was able to open his presents the next morning in his Christmas PJs.
