Gifts and Other Randomness

This may be the most boring Christmas post you'll ever read, but I thought I would share how we do our gift-giving around here and hook you up with some links to what I'm reading in the blog world these days. Which you probably all know and have also been reading, but I'll link you up, just in case. Just to say I did. And help the poor soul that isn't. (I think that was pretty bad grammar, but moving on...)

I mentioned before how there is usually anywhere from 35 - 55 people around at Christmas.Which is a blast, but makes for a wholelotta presents. We try to keep them trimmed down some by drawing names. Everyone's name goes in a hat and we draw the lucky person we get to buy for the next year! Kids draw kids names, and adults draw adults. It works well, and keeps everyone from having to buy 55 gifts! Here is what our tree looked like last year, pre-open presents time:

And yeah, that picture doesn't really show them all. Just take my word for it...there is a lot. But oh the fun.  Christmas morning we all gather in the big room.

It usually takes us a couple hours to get them all opened. (Because, heaven forbid if two people are opening a gift at the same time! No, its one at a time around here!) We have certain ones designated to be the garbage collectors, and my aunt always hands around paper bags to store the loot. So things stay pretty much organized and under control, considering the amount of people we have. (It probably helps that we've been doing this for 36 years, too, dontcha ya think?)

We also play a gift exchange game that everyone brings tacky gifts for, so almost everyone gets to walk away with something else...

(He'll be okay, believe me.)


Don't let me change the subject or anything, but here is a roundup of some of the other fun Christmas stuff going on in blogging land:

Katie is doing "The 12 Days of Christmas" which has been super fun to read. (Her blog keeps crashing my browser tho, doesn't anyone else have a problem with that? Its like, "for heaven's sake, Firefox, just let me read her fantastic blog!")

Life...Your Way is doing 101 days of Christmas (overachievers) as well as some other random Christmas stuff! 

Jen is sharing some of their Christmas decor..so beautiful as always.

As is Clara. So cute!!! (Ok, so John and Sherry are doing most of the decor, but ya know.)

I Heart Naptime has a ton of great ideas, and fun things to see and read about (and pin! oh the pinning!)


Oh, and not to completely change the subject again, but have you noticed how many people are having babies this Christmas? In the last month I know of oodles of beautiful babies that have been born. I just learned of another one right this second, which is why I am boring you with this tangent. Just making sure you knew that.

How does your family handle the gift-giving? What fun and "pinsperational" (sorry, couldn't help it) things have you been reading these days? Please share, I'd love to read along! (and pin along) Do you know anyone that is having babies? Just curious...