12.24.17 - Christmas Eve

This year Mom's wish list included going to lunch or dinner with the five siblings, so we arranged to go to Bradden's in Old Town St. Charles on Christmas Eve. We were originally going to go to Magpie's, but they aren't open on Christmas Eve. Bradden's would be open but they weren't taking reservations. We knew that "Christmas Traditions" (in which people dress up as famous and historical Christmas figures and act out their roles all up and down the street) would still be going on, and we suspected Main Street might be very crowded. Originally I offered to get to Bradden's at 11:30 a.m. and hold our spot in line, and I asked if anyone would come and wait with me. But it turns out that Mom was going to Christmas Eve mass later in the day (instead of in the late morning, like I thought), so actually all of us except Julie drove to Old Town together.

Mom with Christmas Traditions' Jack Frost

It was snowing when we left Mom's house. In fact I think it had been lightly snowing most of the morning. It was the best kind of snow: pretty and powdery and not really sticking to the streets (perhaps because it was so cold outside!) Not only was the snow pretty but I think it meant fewer people were out and about, so Old Town wasn't as jammed packed as we'd anticipated. There were still a lot of people there, making the place seem bustling and fun, but not so many people that we struggled to find parking or even had to wait long at all once we got to Bradden's. In fact I think we waited less than 5 minutes before getting seated at a round table in the corner by a window.

The place was charming. They had holly and stockings and other Christmas decor over the brick walls. The window next to us was oddly bright because of all the fresh snow outside (still falling as we sat there). From my seat I could easily see the street and the horse drawn carriages and the Charles Dickens costumers and so on. It was ridiculously Christmasy. I loved it.

Carolers

We split some portabello mushrooms and cheese sticks while waiting for Julie to get there (since we had originally planned on meeting at noon and didn't realize we'd be seated so quickly). Our server's name was also Monica, which seemed to delight Mom, haha. Monica the server was friendly but not overly so, just down to Earth and easy to talk to. She was nice. The women (except me) had some wine (I had Diet Coke). Ellen and I had some lobster bisque and I think I had a fancy ham and cheese sandwich. It was all delicious. Julie ate nothing but wine and a piece of lettuce, I kid you not. We talked about kids and Betrayal and the Thanksgiving trip and who knows what else. Laughed a lot. It was a really nice lunch.

Julie talks about Zoey resolving to be good the last day before Christmas.

Afterward we had planned to walk up and down Main Street and check everything out, but it was so cold just walking from the restaurant to the car that we changed out minds. We invited Julie to come back with us to Mom's to hang out a while but by the time she would have gotten there she would have had to go back home in about 30 minutes, so she decided just to go back home after all.

After we got back to Mom's, Ellen and I went out to get Mom a Christmas gift. Even though the lunch was supposed to be the gift we wanted her to have something to open Christmas Day. I wanted to go to a craft store and look for some Christmas decor for her, but the JoAnn's fabrics I thought was nearby appears to no longer exist. Instead we went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond, which was almost a bust. We walked through the entire store pretty much uninspired, but we settled on a Snoopy-themed Christmas welcome mat that was actually pretty cute. (I had noticed Mom's current welcome mat was just plain black.) As soon as we got back to the house I hurried downstairs to wrap it, and it had to go in the largest box I could find. I was a bit tickled by this because I suspected Zoey and Malcolm would be excited/intrigued when they saw such a huge present. They are still young enough the present size equates to awesomeness, haha.

Not too long after that I went back to the Jacksons so I could spend at least some time with the girls that day. I very briefly did a bit of work (construction payroll).

I went back to Mom's around 7 p.m. Ellen was making a potato soup and gooey butter cookies and Julie was cooking wassail (a word she loves to say repeatedly). I finally got around to wrapping my secret santa gift, but we held off on our gift exchange because Denny was coming over with Zoey and Malcolm to say hi (we hadn't seen him yet since being in town). Sure enough, when they got there the kids went into the living room to examine JaMa's many wrapped gifts, and they were excited about the huge present in front for JaMa herself. Bwaha.

We all went downstairs to play some Quiplash and eat too many gooey butter cookies. Julie has pretty consistently answered all Quiplash questions with Game of Thrones references, which has led to her pretty consistently getting dead last in every Quiplash game. She seems to think it's hilarious though, and we tend to think her own amusement is pretty funny. We couldn't figure out how to turn on "family friendly" Quiplash, so if a slightly pervy question came up it became a game of finding the answer to best turn the question on its head. For example:

These answers were especially funny because they are the same exact humor, yet the people answering (me and I forget who now) couldn't have known in advance what similar answers they were putting. We laughed pretty hard.

Soon it was time for Denny to take the kids home to get to bed. As they were getting ready to leave I asked Zoey, "Can you believe tomorrow is Christmas???" And she was so excited she started hopping in the kitchen. She is the perfect, peak age for this, I think. Julie and Mom explained to Zoey that Santa won't come if she stays awake so she has to go to sleep easy.

After they left, the rest of us did Sibling Secret Santa. The best part of the whole tradition is standing in a circle, trying not to look at the person you're about to shove your gift toward, counting to three, and then shoving the gift as quickly as possible. 

Julie had me, and she gave me this lovely poem (helpfully colored by Zoey):

A couple weeks prior Mom had transferred me a decent sum of money she said was anonymously donated by a family member. Turns out that was Julie, out of nowhere. We are very paycheck-to-paycheck right now while Jack finishes his degree, so it meant a lot. Julie told me that evening that she wrote the poem while at work, haha.

I had Everett and gave him the only gift he asked for, which was a large desk calendar that he could actually hang on his wall. He liked it. But even better, Everett had Julie, and he had wrapped a giant box filled with tissue paper only for her to find it had nothing in it at all. She then realized that the bow on the box had a tiny note taped to the back that just said "I donated to the thing" (meaning Amanda Hitchen's CERBC work). It was such a hilarious presentation for a gift Julie really did want. I was impressed.

Everett laughing at his own handiwork.

Not long after gift exchange Julie headed home, but I stayed to play what turned out to be the only game of Betrayal I played the entire trip. It was Neil, Everett, and me, and I ended up being the traitor. I transferred the house to some other dimension filled with poisonous gas, and Neil and Everett had to roll for damage at every turn. Ultimately Neil was so weakened that when he had to try to roll to exit the junk room, it killed him. Everett started joking that he is on the first floor basically punching himself in the face (rolling for damage) trying to get to the organ room to play some magical song that would take them back to the other dimension, and he calls up to the second floor (where Neil's character had been) saying, "Neil can you come help me?" and then he just hears "AHHHH!" *sounds of junk falling all over Neil* *silence*. Both boys were acting out the potential scene (while in the background Ellen kept singing the organ music from Ghost and Mr. Chicken) and we were all laughing so hard. My stomach actually hurt from laughter. It was great.

Goofing around during Betrayal.

By the time we finished the game it was 11:30 p.m. (Betrayal never goes as quickly as the guys say it will), so Everett took me back to the Jacksons. We were going to take Mom's car since it was under the carport and had already been driven that day, but it was out of gas. So we went to Everett's frozen, covered-in-snow car, and with two scrapers we both cleaned it off. Right before Everett got in the car he realized he'd gotten snow all over himself and as he brushed it off he said "Minus two points Sanity" (a Betrayal reference) and we laughed.

Overall it was a wonderful, Christmasy, happy day.