Today was our McVeity family Christmas party for my side of the family. We basically got up this morning and got ready to go. We headed off to Chelsea's house for Christmas Brunch. There was so much good food, I was just so excited. I didn't even know where to start. My Mom outdid herself as usual. She made tons of different kinds of muffins, cinnamon rolls, a huge fruit salad, tons of crepes with her special peach sauce and strawberry sauces..there was ham, scrambled eggs, funeral potatoes, little cereal boxes for the kids, yogurt tubes, bacon, a cereal snack mix, and orange juice. Holy Yummy!!! There were 12 kids and 15 adults at the house. The kids played in the basement together as well as outside toboganning on the back hill. After we ate, it was present time. The adults all do a name draw at thanksgiving to determine who we will buy a gift for (so it doesn't get crazy expensive). I got Daniels name and oddly enough, he got my name. I got him 2 Quiksilver tshirts. He got me a gift certificate to Cineplex. Grant got Meg (he gave her Liquid soaps and body lotions from Bath and Body Works) and my Mom drew Grants name (she got him gift certificates to the theatres as well as popcorn and a really good chef`s knife). Looks like we will be going on a date soon. :)
The kids all got really fun gifts from Grandma and Grandpa. (They always spoil them). The boys got Nerf guns, which they had a little to much fun with, LOL! The girls got barbies and purses and wigs. Tyson got a bunch of cute chunky cars (he gets unbelievably happy with cars. He doesn`t need anything else as long as he has a car). We also played our annual unwrap the present game. There are a bunch of layers of wrappings on the gift. You have to use big work gloves (or oven mitts) and you take turns rolling the dice in a circle. When someone gets doubles it's their turn to try to get the layer of wrapping off. Grant ended up winning the first prize, which was a DVD player. I believe Shand won the second round of the game with a cool crank radio as the prize. It was fun! 
I gave my Dad a special gift I had been working on throughout the year. I took a bunch of his poetry and added some photos of my own that suited that particular poem and self published the book for him. It was so fun. It was a hardcover book with a dust jacket even. It was such a fun project to do, and I was very happy to give it to him. I took a couple of pictures of it before I gave it to him. We also exchanged fmaily letters at the party. This is also an annual tradition that we do. Each family sums up what has gone on in their lives in the past year, in a letter form and adds some recent pictures of themselves and their family. I keep all of the letters that I receive each year, including one of my own, in a binder in page protectors. This is one easy way for me to put together a family history. I think it will be fun for me and also my kids to look back on and see what things were like when they were younger, and how their cousins looked and what everyone was up to at that point in their lives. Things have changed so much already in the 4 years that we have been doing this.
After some visiting and chatting we headed off to go home. We stopped at the mall on the way home because today's advent calendar slip said "Kids draw names for eachother". They had drawn names this morning for who they would buy for. We do this as a tradition every year. On Christmas Eve they get to open a gift from one of their brothers or sisters. They like that they are able to pick the gift out themselves. Unfortunately, Tyson started coughing a lot at the mall (like a barking cough) and Maiya looked like she had seen better days. They were totally fine when we went to the party, but it all occurred at some point today. We made the mall trip short and took them home to go to sleep. It was a fun day, and a very tiring one. We were all exhausted! It ended up that I took Tyson to our after hours clinic tonight to get him checked out because of his really nasty barking cough and his fever. It turns out he has croup. They gave him a dose of medicine and offered some tips on how to care for children with croup. Poor little guy. The medicine was helpful right away, and he slept well.
I gave my Dad a special gift I had been working on throughout the year. I took a bunch of his poetry and added some photos of my own that suited that particular poem and self published the book for him. It was so fun. It was a hardcover book with a dust jacket even. It was such a fun project to do, and I was very happy to give it to him. I took a couple of pictures of it before I gave it to him. We also exchanged fmaily letters at the party. This is also an annual tradition that we do. Each family sums up what has gone on in their lives in the past year, in a letter form and adds some recent pictures of themselves and their family. I keep all of the letters that I receive each year, including one of my own, in a binder in page protectors. This is one easy way for me to put together a family history. I think it will be fun for me and also my kids to look back on and see what things were like when they were younger, and how their cousins looked and what everyone was up to at that point in their lives. Things have changed so much already in the 4 years that we have been doing this. 
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