Christmas Chaos 2025

I love our Christmas traditions. As I get older, and after losing Bill, I tend to be more sentimental and grateful for the important people in my life. Let's face it, I'm sappy as shit anymore, and that's not the old GunDiva.

Christmas Eve used to be hosted at my Grandma Mary and Grandpa Moe's house - it was always just full-on entropy: loud, chaotic, and lovely. Grandma, Grandpa, aunts, uncles, parents, cousins, and the handful of adopted family crammed into their little house full of unconditional love. After both Grandma and Grandpa passed, my Uncle Russ started hosting. It's a bit more civilized, but that's only because the littles aren't so little anymore, with the exception of the Gremlin. The menu is pretty set, and we all contribute: potato enchiladas (Jay and me); tamales (Nebalee); beans, green chili, rice, tortillas (Uncle Russ and Aunt Marg); and assorted sides and desserts. It's my favorite meal of the year, hands down.

Many years ago, we started making our gifts to exchange, and it has become my favorite gift exchange as well, because everything is handmade with love. In the past, Jay and I have gifted food items, but most recently have been gifting crafts. This year's craft was one I learned from the Skill-A-Week program I subscribed to: homemade candles.

Jay and I made the candles, then he painted a small character on them.

Nebalee always gifts glasses of some sort, either shot glasses or margarita glasses. One year, she did brass glasses for Moscow Mules. They're always fun, and this year was no different.

Fancy glasses for the Chocolate martini she made, along with
homemade mint extract for everyone.

Dinner and drinks surrounded by people I love, and who I only get to see a couple of times a year, made my Christmas Eve special, as it does every year.

My beautiful aunt and uncle

Obligatory picture in front of the tree

Cheers!

Digger and the Gremlin wearing last year's shirts,
Digger's: The Legend, Gremlin's: The Legacy

After a few hours in the chaos, it felt good to go home and sit by the tree for just a few minutes. As much as I love and look forward to Christmas Eve every year, it drains this introvert's battery. Having a few quiet moments before jumping back into family-filled holiday fun is essential.

Christmas morning was breathtaking. No snow, in fact, it ended up being in the 60s, but it was still breathtaking.

We really do live in a postcard.

Jay and I always do our personal gift exchange first thing in the morning, sitting in bed, before the day starts. I have deep, deep love for the "good" ice, and that lovely hubby of mine got me my own "good" ice machine. I'd been dragging my feet on buying one, because our other ice machine was working just fine and I couldn't see spending the money for another one when ours was working. The beauty about gifts is that I don't have to feel guilty about replacing something :) 

Our old ice machine found a home with Ashinator and her hubby, so all is well. 

I didn't take a single picture the entire day, after taking pictures of my ice machine. I guess that means I was too busy having fun. We visited Jay's family, then Ashinator, and then headed up to the Lodge to spend time with Mom and sibs. By 8:00 o'clock, I was done for and headed up to bed, while everyone else hung out.

Normally, the Christmas festivities end Christmas night, but Nebalee bought all of us sibs and spouses entrance into Beat the Bomb in Denver, so on Friday night we ended up having a sibs' night, which was a blast! We split into two teams and competed against each other in different problem solving arcade-type games, in which we were a part of the arcade game. It's very difficult to explain, but so much freaking fun. 

Each team is competing for time to defuse the "bomb". Nebalee's team, The Shenanigators, beat our team, F-cawf. The better the team does at each game, the more time they have to diffuse the bomb. Of course, the bomb is rigged, so everyone gets doused in slime. It was very Nickelodeon, which made our Gen X hearts happy.