Christmas 2012, Part 2

Let's finish up our Christmas story, yes?

I paused the recap as we headed out of Columbia. The trip home was only a quick hour and a half. Unfortunately, my dad's trip was a bit longer. The ride was supposed to be a painful six and a half hours. But with the crazy Christmas traffic it ended up taking him almost 10 hours. Thanks again for making the long trip, dad!

We arrived home and had a few minutes to get the house ready for our visitors. Soon enough, Grandmama and Emery arrived (with a car chock-a-block full of stuff). We had a nice relaxing time with them and went to bed.

We decided to do our gift giving in a new way this year.
We went on a group shopping trip. Before we headed out we decided on all of the details of the present giving/ shopping extravaganza.

I will call the event: Name Pick/ Timed Shopping!

Here is how it works:

• We picked a store that had tons of options but wasn't too big (Marshalls).
• Before the big shopping day we all wrote down how much time we thought should be spent. Then we added all the times up and divided by 5. The winning time was: 39 minutes
• We also all wrote down how much we thought we should spend and divided by 5. The winning amount = $22
• Then we picked names.
• There would also be awards: who got closest to the dollar amount without going over, who was on time or early, best stuff, most items, best bang for their buck, and an award for reminding Kelly to use her Marshalls gift card.

Off we went to Marshalls. It felt like Supermarket Sweep. We were all pretty excited. My mom even took a photo of us ready at the door.

Laura and Cora took a quick stroll through the dresses while Kelly (in the background) perused the shoe department. This is exciting stuff, isn't it!?! It is a good thing I started The Etc. Lists so not everyone is subjected to this.

Here's what we got:

• Kelly picked out some nice warm gloves as her gift.
• Scott picked up a couple of games, an olive oil container, a package of garbage disposal cleaners, and a diet pepsi (to help him get as close to the $22 as possible).
• Emery got himself a brand new can opener, some books, and he copied Scott at the last minute and picked up a soda.
• My mom got a fancy new shirt.
• I got a reusable cup with a straw for Cora, a creme brulee cup, a microwavable/ oven-safe bowl with a lid, 2 packages of cool note cards, and I also copied Scott and threw in a candy bar at the last minute to boost my total.

After making our purchases we made sure to stand around a bit longer talking about our purchases and who was winning while looking pretty bizarre and a little creepy. There were a couple more photos taken which didn't help.

As for the awards:
Scott won the award for closest to the amount. And we didn't really discuss the other awards.

That evening Scott, Cora, and I headed up to his parents house for their annual celebration with extended family. We had a nice dinner, played the white elephant game, and caught up with each other.

We spent the night there and woke up the next morning to see if Santa came to the Spencers house a day early (Spoilet alert: he did!). We had fun opening presents. 

We did our Christmas pinata tradition. 

The string broke away from the pinata early on so Scott had to hold it up himself and hope no one got his knuckles.

We took our annual Spencer family photo and headed back home.

I am writing this post almost 4 months after the fact so it is a bit tricky remembering exactly what we did. I'm sure Scott made some good food and I'm sure there was a lot of laughing and fun being had.

This post is getting pretty lengthy... it looks like Christmas 2012 is going to have 3 parts! 
I will be back this weekend with a recap on Christmas day.