It really was the day before our weekly small group, when they decided it would be our Christmas gathering/celebration. The menu switched from our long-standing tacos to . . . soup (we bought fruit and had some juice boxes for the kids, so we were covered either way)! And those two words that make everyone cringe, then laugh, then cringe again "white elephant" exchange came in to play. For clarification, this was something you already had at home. No purchasing allowed! (unless you really wanted to).
We didn't have time to go shopping anyway, so Buck put together 1. a prepper kit 2. a hygiene kit 3. some signed football cards of players who didn't really make it past their rookie year to which I added 4. a homeschool starter pack (lots of teacher guides in there) 5. the Squawk chicken game my mom gave the kids last year . . . its time had come :) and 6. a large purse with ornaments and one of Caelan's lamb hats inside. We also packed a special gift just for our pastor and small group leader.
All-in-all THIRTY gifts waited to be exchanged! One for each child, one for each adult. Can you believe how many kids are crammed into the pictures above and below? And one mom left her three at home! It was a festive, fun, laughter-filled exchange. The kids, of course, went first. Our group's math teacher wrote out numbers on scraps of paper and had everyone draw for order. The lines denoting which number was six and which was nine threw off a couple of kids who thought they had 16 or 19 :) Eventually we got things rolling . . . and wouldn't you know, Buck's little buddy chose our chicken game (to his parents' delight, ha!) He LOVED squawking that chicken, over and over again.Brennen selected an oddly-shaped package on his turn; you can tell by his friend C's reaction, that he knew exactly what it was and thought it was HILARIOUS that B made this pick.
What teenage boy doesn't want a ruffley, Hello Kitty umbrella? Oh my goodness the ensuing laughter :) But the laughter was just getting started. When the kids finished their draw, we handed our gift to our pastor. He and his co-pastor have a long-running joke that one is short and hairy like a Hobbit and the other, though very tall, cannot grow a beard at all. We decided to help the tall one out :) I saw these "emergency hipster beards" in a magazine. Then I stalked them on Amazon til they dropped to half price with free shipping. It was worth it! We were rolling, tears streaming as he tried on his new beard . . . with his wife's help of course. He immediately made it his profile picture and had more than 100 likes in minutes, so many funny comments too.
When the white elephant gift exchange was first announced, Buck and I jokingly asked on the text string about live animals being part of the exchange . . . I mean, we have a few. It turned out that one family, who also leads youth group with us, is struggling a bit in the finances department at the moment; they actually grew interested. In fact, it turns out that the husband has always wanted a pet hedgehog! When we talked to them about our little Radagast in person later that day, the somewhat hesitant wife said to her husband, "Okay, Merry Christmas!" They've got two kids and not near the pet population we have, so we hope that the hedgehog formerly known as Radagast (he's Quilson now) will get all the attention he used to get before the guinea pigs moved in to steal his spotlight. From the pictures and notes I've seen on facebook, he certainly gets much more holding and playing time than he was getting here. That's a good thing for him! And fewer pet duties and expenses for us. We enjoyed our unusual pet for two years, and hope this family will enjoy him for many years to come :)
As a result of our unusual white elephant gift offerings (the lady with no children ended up with the school books), Buck is now referred to as *Santa.* Other small group members now laughingly advise others to not do a white elephant exchange with Buck involved because you never know what you might get as a result :) Buck actually likes the gift he opened . . . a massive magnet strip intended for kitchen knives, now hanging from his tool shelf in the garage. Also in his box was a heavy and complete set of silverware. After the exchange, we were talking to our pastor's wife about the silverware, saying we had plenty and since they always host small group, if she wanted it it was hers.
She said that they used to have a nice, matching set, but at their previous church they also hosted small group and the kids would often throw their silverware in the trash with the paper plates they used. So, all the good silverware--gonzos. They subsequently bought a random cutlery conglomeration at Goodwill, and that's still what they use. Buck gladly handed off the matching set (with large serving fork, oooh lala!) and sure enough, that's what we used at their daughter's birthday party later that week :)
Caelan, you'll never believe this, got two unopened bottles of Young Living essential oils! Brennen traded his umbrella for some Christmas books by Max Lucado (one that Gabby recently said she remembered from when they were little and it was her favorite). Graysen got some handcrafted goodies from the pastor's daughters and Gabby gave her nail polish find to her sister.
As we were all getting ready to leave, one of the ladies asked suddenly, "Are we going to pray or anything?" Ooops! I guess in all the fun, we forgot about the small group part of small group. Which is okay! But praying together is good, too.
About this time, one of the young men (who was back from his missionary service) came in to say he'd gotten stuck in the snow trying to get down the country lane. All the men and most of the teenaged boys went out to assess the situation. At one point, a chainsaw was started, but ultimately not used (whew!). We ladies had a chance to pray and the kids had a chance to play and we all arrived home with sore cheeks from nearly non-stop smiling. Buck said he couldn't remember the last time he laughed that much. It was a good night!
2 comments:
I was hoping to see a picture of Brennen with his Hello kitty umbrella! Sounds like Caelan did well in the gift department. So glad you had an evening filled with laughter...it is supposed to be very healing!!!! Your small group seems like a very festive and laugh inducing group! I think we laughed a lot the night I went with you.
We are super thankful for this group of friends! I'm glad you got to meet them :)
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