december daily: day 24 Christmas at Little Grandma's

ahhhhhh. Christmas Eve. PART ONE

twenty-ten will forever go down in history as the year that Kristy got punked. hahahaha. we pulled off the best prank EVER. keep reading.....

on the eve of Christmas for as long as i can remember, i've spent the evening at my Grandma Pearce's house. always.

it's always a time to just breathe, relax and soak it all in. grandma insists on making the entire meal and dessert table by herself. nothing better than old fashioned cookin'.

it used to be that grandma cooked and the kids cleaned dishes before presents could be opened. that's still the case, but now we make excellent use of the dishwasher. :)

then we all squeeze get cozy in her livingroom......all 12+ of us....while ashlyn insists on play Santa's helper and passing out the presents. while i always insist on getting lots of 'flash in your face' photos. hey, i never claimed to be a photographer. ha.

opening gifts is always a bit of chaos at grandma's because it's always been tradition that as soon as you are handed your gift, you can dig in and open it up. i'm always so focused on watching the girls' reactions that i often miss all the other commotion....and forget to even open mine in the process, LOL.

we started a new tradition this year to be played only by the adults after presents were opened just for kicks and giggles. the first year out of the gate did NOT disappoint. but i'll get to that in a bit.

spidergirl got herself loads of spiderman gadgets and some new kicks----a pair of pink rainboots! that girl and her rainboots.

while ashlyn was over the moon about a pair of pink monkey pajamas and an animal beading kit. that girl and her craft adventures.


betcha' couldn't tell by this picture that spidergirl loves her little grandma something fierce. :)

a quick hug and she's off again to play with her spiderman yo-yo. shockingly enough, she's pretty impressive with it.

but not as impressive as daddy and his bag of tricks. papa has some good ones up his sleeve too.

now that presents are opened, us adults stared our new tradition. our first white elephant auction.

we put all the wrapped gifts in the middle of the floor and passed out numbers and let's just say it went a little something like this (since i can't remember exactly how it went):

my cousin Nannette has number 1.
she opens a packages of multiple sized nesting baskets with red plaid liners.

doug has number 2.
he opens some pine scented oil diffuser that is sure not to get stolen from him.

aunt Brenda has number 3.
she steals the baskets from Nannette.

Nannette then gets to pick another gift. she opens 10 lottery tickets.

her husband Joel has number 4.
he steals the lottery tickets.

Nannette gets a third pick.
i honestly can't remember what she ended up with--something else that was sure not to get stolen.

i have number 5
i steal the lottery tickets.
(note: we brought the lottery tickets as one of our gifts. i totally forgot about the prank we were pulling.)

so then Joel picks another gift.
he gets this snowwoman. LOL.

my step-mom Connie has number 6.
she unwraps a homespun looking "let it snow" country-blue heart shaped sign with a snowman on it. pretty sure that won't get stolen.

my sister Kristy has number 7.
she unwraps the other gift we brought. a handmade marshmallow shooter.
(side note: BEST invention EVER!)


grandma has number 8.
she steals the lottery tickets from me.

i get to pick again.
i end up with a super high-beam flashlight. (LOVE it!)

dad has number 9.
he picks a gift and ends up with anti-monkey butt powder and chicken poop lip junk. LOL. PERFECT gift for him.


uncle Terry has number 10.
he steals the marshmallow shooter.
(no surprise to me at all! he's ornery as all get out!)

so then, kristy has to pick again.
she ends up stealing the lottery tickets from grandma.

which leaves grandma stuck with the last gift.
it ended up being a bag full of various cookbooks----which we all know she doesn't need and will likely never use.

but here comes the good part.

everyone else has started their own little conversations and started packing up their gifts, cleaning up wads of wrapping paper and whatnot, while kristy starts scratching off her lottery tickets.


two tickets in she hollers........woooohoooo, i won $2!

meantime, uncle terry is having fun with the marshmallow shooter and blasting kristy with it. with perfect aim he got her in the nose. SO funny.

then of course, emma wants to get in on the fun.

i'm telling you....BEST invention EVER! until they don't stop when you want them too.

so, again, we brought these tickets. planning the whole time to pull a prank. but, me, being the absolute scatterbrain that i am, completely forgot about the prank.

until...........5 tickets into her scratch offs......

kristy starts freakin' out, practically hyperventilating, definitely shaking and saying over and over..... "oh, my (expletive) G-d, i just won $5,000 (expletive) dollars"

"no, seriously!!!! look at this!"


of course, everyone is like "no way" and "are you sure it's not fake".

when she looks at doug and he can't hold back his laughter any more, she knew it was a prank.

we totally PUNKED her. BEST PRANK EVER!

then they both duked it out in the middle of the floor--kristy pounding on him. so hysterical. i was completely late on the trigger and missed getting a picture of the whole thing other than this one.

funny thing is, this whole prank was ALL my (last minute) idea! she just automatically assumed it was doug since he's the family prankster.

you see, a month or so ago, doug came home from a trip to the dollar store with these tickets:



he used one on his cousin a month ago and i've already mailed the remaining three to someone else to pull her own prank. :) can't wait to hear how it ends up.

anywho. she kept on scratching and in the end she won $52 total from her tickets. so, all in all it was a good prank and quite profitable for her.


the best part was when i asked her to read the back of the $5,000 winner. (click the photo to make it bigger so you can get a little chuckle!)


we ended the night with our usual confirming plans with my dad for Christmas Day dinner and eating dessert.

emma was so excited for Christmas Day. she was certain that Santa was going to bring her a puppy dog pillow pet. so her and Kristy were crossing fingers and toes and making cute little wishes.


to be continued.....