Susan and Pam's plan worked well as the kids had a great time at the pool wearing them down so they could make it into the evening without major incident or inter-family fighting! Auntie Katie was hosting the annual big Christmas Eve feast and present opening event. Grandma had been working hard all week in order to prepare the traditional Italian feast of lasagna and spaghetti for everyone to gorge on!
While waiting for Uncle Denny to arrive from work I decided to gather all the younglings onto the couch and start a protesting chant of "We want our presents!" My hope was that our chant would overthrow the long held tradition of eating first, cleaning everything up and then being able to open presents. I knew the kids would be on my side with getting our loot first. Grandma soon put a stop to our nonsense, and the kids had to find some new way to pass the time while dealing with their eager anticipation of what the night would bring!
Luckily, Jingle, our Elf on the Shelf, made the trip over to Auntie Katie's house and kept the little ones highly entertained as he moved about the house while they looked for him. Uncle Denny finally arrived and it was time for the feast to begin. Everyone over loaded their plates with carb ladened Italian goodies that would have made the mafia proud! We ate, ate, and ate just a little more to make sure we would get our fill until next year. Uncle Jeffy, hands down won prize for eating the most with Aunt Susan coming in a close second and Pam not far behind in third. The award for most disappointing amount eaten went to cousin Garrett as he is usually neck-and-neck with Uncle Jeffy. To be fair,the little fellow has been battling a tummy bug and just didn't have his normal appetite. Hopefully he will start feeling better soon to get back on his game!
After dinner we needed to make sure the entire kitchen was cleaned from top-to-bottom. Uncle Jeffy, as always, was trying to skip out of the cleaning so he could sleep off his food coma on the couch in peace. The eagerly excited younger generation were in no way going to allow the free jungle gym to lay peacefully and declared war on him. Cousin Teagy was sent in first with a flying cannon ball to the gut and Little D followed with a few well-placed roundhouse kicks that landed nicely on the new found home of Jeffy's lasagna. AK decided to join in on the fun with the threat of a nicely placed wedgie! After that it was like a swarm of bees on him making him wish that he helped cleanup and not taken on the award of "Most Eaten"!
Soon enough it was time to open the presents. One-by-one we shared, exchanged, laughed and embraced the joy of family and Christmas together! After all the presents were open and every ones heart was filled with love just as their bellies were still stuffed with sauce, cheese and pasta it was time to wind down the evening!
Each branch of the Desparrois' said goodnight so they could go off and prepare for Christmas in their own homes. We returned to Papa and Grandma's house with the idea of going to midnight Mass. At first, both Papa and Grandma were excited about going. As the time got closer, Papa got more tired and realized that he was going to have to tap out in order to get some rest. Grandma decide it was a good idea and followed Papa to bed.
The Mass was beautiful to attend. After we got done with church it was decided that we would fulfill one of Pam's bucket list items of going to eat at the famous world renowned Waffle House. For years Pam has had the dream of eating at a Waffle House. Some people want to visit the pyramids, some want to to see the northern lights and some have bigger ambitions such as climbing Mount Everest. But not my wonderful wife...her goal was to eat at a Waffle House! Now, please understand if the mother who had to carry around two kids in her stomach for nine months each, go through intense labor pains for hours on end, and squeeze them out while I sat back and watched, wanted Waffle House at one o'clock in the morning on Christmas Day, then by god that's what my beautiful blushing bride of sixteen years was going to get!!!
Waffle House did not disappoint as we had an amazing waitress that was fun and very excited about her job getting to work with others. It's not very often that you come across people who want to go out of their way to make you life better. Our server, Arlington did just that. She was a great person to come in contact with on an early Christmas morning! On a scale of one-to-five waffles, Pam gave her life long dream a rare and uncommon five waffles eaten with a little syrup dripping down her face!
We decided to call it a night as we realized that it was now three o'clock in the morning in Texas. With exhuastion soon setting in we made in home just in time to beat good old Santa Claus! We settled down for a nice winter nap to dream of sugar plums dancing in our heads and other crazy antics that Christmas would bring with the family!
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