Well another exciting LaFave Christmas is in the memory books. Throw in the 80th surprise birthday party we did for my dad before the festivities and the chaos of 30 some people and kids running around and you had one chaotic evening. Oh, a good chaos of course though at one point in time I panicked cause I remembered that Joe had arrived with me and I hadn’t seen him the whole night. As self appointed Puppet director and with food still to make in the 3 hours window between when I got there and when we would eat, the decorations for the party and the door opening continually for more relatives to greet, I was as an old friend used to say “busier than a one eyed cat watching two mouseholes.”
Now I’d like to say everything went smoothly and it pretty much did. My texted “no paintball game” didn’t go through apparently though my phone said it did…maybe it went to a wrong number and some other harried over stressed mom or dad said “oh that’s good, didn’t know we had one planned” and went on about their business. “ Since it didn’t go through there was one very disappointed 10 year old and a dad that was pretty upset as well. Though I’m not sure why at me since I don’t even play paintball. Still, as party coordinator by default ever since my mom died, I suppose it was my responsibility in a way. All that was fixed with a promise from an older cousin to go to a paintball course soon as possible and spend the whole day.
My dad arrived early for his surprise party which was ok since we had decorated a room in the back of the house thinking he never goes back there. The guest of honor was there and all of us weren’t prompting some last minute phone calls. My niece Jordan said we needed walkie talkies to coordinate the crazy bunch and that way when my dad arrived instead of going out into the cold and trying to stall him as he walked up the driveway, I could have stayed inside at the window and made the announcement that “the eagle has landed” when he arrived. My brother Robert did his best to keep him talking in the kitchen while we waited to sneak a few more people thru the back door . This year though as in years past my dad had arrived with a fistful of Christmas gift cards with every person’s name on them and was ready to hand them all out. He is really quite funny when he does this. Amid the chorus of Thanks Pepa, thanks Frenchy, thanks dad you can hear him proclaiming not Merry Christmas, or this is for you, but “HERE!” as he hands out his card. Sort of a combination Scrooge/Santa persona. Its actually quite hilarious and etched into my memory with other Pepa isms such as “There’s too much sage “ an pronouncement made every Thanksgiving when my mom was alive. One year she purposefully didn’t put any sage in the stuffing so that when he yelled from the living room(because at my families gatherings no one will sit at a table, preferring to eat standing up or sitting down balancing an overloaded plate of food on their lap) “Betty, there’s too much sage I will never forget her yelling back to wherever his criticism came from and with a smile on her face I didn’t put any sage in it this year Frenchy! LOL funny how sometimes the most simple of memories can trigger a smile from ear to ear when remembering.
Once he had given out all his envelopes we sang and he looked very “touched” in a gruff Pepa kind of way. The birthday Cake was cut and passed out, birthday gifts were openedand we all went to the living room where our Apple Expert Chris had prepared a video and was trying to get it to play on the tv. After several “just 2 more minutes” from him, and every few minutes my dad asking why he didn’t just stick the disc in the vcr (LOL) and Chris patiently going into some mumbo jumbo (at least to the computer illiterates among us) that the hd something or other wasn’t picking up the something or other and he needed to download the something or other and the room growing as restless as the shoppers on Black Friday waiting for the doors to be unlocked, it finally played and was quite touching. Now, again, it is not my fault that the pictures I managed to dig up for Chris’ birthday gift surprise had an inordinate amount of pictures of me and my kids and my dad in them. I gave it my best in trying to find photos of my siblings and their kids. And I did facebook message the gift idea and solicited photos be sent to Chris if they wanted them included. LOL That video was followed up by a video my cousin Peg had made for him which had a lot of really OLD pictures of him and his sisters and his dad and mom and pictures of most of the rest of the family. I had left the “video presentation “ to go out side and freeze my butt off hanging the piñata so that the end of the video could be quickly (which is a word that doesn’t quite fit with LaFave family Christmas) followed by the pinata . Now, this year we were blessed with lots of kids there. Robert’s adorable grandkids were there and his stepson Justin, and so I made the “piñata coordinator” decision to do it in age order. Unfortunately in age progression Violet the 2 year old cutie came before Cooper and a minor meltdown occurred. As poor Coopie was taken away by grandma Shelly to calm, the metal bat that was heavier than the kids that Jesse had brought me when I asked for a big stick or something to hit the piñata with was replaced by a last minute dash by Jordan to the garage where miraculously a plastic child friendly bat was found. Much to my relief I might add as I was holding the string on the piñata to adjust for the height of the swinger and the string was too short forcing me to stand dangerously close the dangling Boot. Yes the piñata was a boot this year in honor of the birthday boy…that would be my dad since it was Christmas eve , not Christmas (just in case you thought I didn’t remember that Jesus’s birthday was the reason we were there in the first place)…And I also made the “Pinata coordinator” decision to not make them be blindfolded since I didn’t want to be whacked with a bat by a dizzy, blindfolded kid. All got a swing and the piñata burst amid cries of candy and one “who would put granola bars in a piñata”. (filler people…do you know how much candy one of those suckers hold? Geez.) We gathered candy in the dark as usual..not sure why we don’t do this when its still light outside but that would be too logical and we all went in to EAT. Finally!
Now you don’t have to ask twice with this bunch for them to grab a plate and start moving thru the food line. And we were heaping plates when someone remembered that we hadn’t made our circle and said grace. We stopped mid food frenzy and gathered hands, our family spanning from the food line, into the living room, thru the foyer and back thru the kitchen (BLESSING ALERT!) . Now in years past Jesse has been the designated prayer but he took a pass. Chris volunteered and is quite a prayer. I don’t think I’ve ever heard my son pray out loud and he spoke from the heart about blessings and more blessings and family and food and Pepa being a great head of the family and missing Mema in heaven and so on…..when he paused to take a breath(he is my son after all) and said “and…followed by a 2 second pause to collect his thoughts, an impromptu chorus of Amen’s rang out from all over the circle and we broke the circle and got to the food , causing a burst of laughter from even Chris.
The puppet show followed and Eric did a super job of portraying a smart alec greedy monkey and Anna playing his Elephant friend and me playing the not greedy Pig. The little kids loved it and Carter and Cooper and Violet and Trey’s laughter was gratifying to all us performers.
Next up was dirty Santa bingo. We gave up on using m&m as markers years ago because of all the start overs from a card being knocked over and we now use the slide cards…(FANCY) I am always the caller and the crowd is much nicer than the Senior Citizens hands down. We made it through in a record 45 minutes because we didn’t clear our cards very often. The Tupperware was the first gift to be out of play from the number of trades though the waffle iron and Walmart card generated a few steals as well. The highlight of the bingo was Violet’s 2 year old “YAY!” when she opened her bingo present, a color it yourself cardboard fort.” Her expression of glee warmed my heart. How Jesse opened and lost his gift (the Walmart card) in the span of 3 seconds we don’t’ know but it was found a few minutes later under the manger scene on the table. ) No one knows how it got there! The gift hunt gave pause long enough for us to gorge ourselves further on every food imaginable. Anna in particular loved my sweet and sour meatballs and Andy’s Panera pastries, Jordan’s Red velvet cupcakes (what is red velvet anyway) were pretty irresistible. Grant and I (the family diabetics) exchanged woeful looks over the dessert table before I proclaimed “that’s why God made insulin” and we dived in. LOL
The end of Bingo gave the first round of partiers an opportunity to bail from the chaos and head out to their own homes and so we bid Jimmy and Jackson, and Robert and Misty and Justin and Trey and Violet and my dad goodbye. Chris and Juliet and Andy and Joe and I took the lull as an opportunity to have our own gift exchange where everyone was happy with their gifts, none more happy than Joe and his Braums giftcard and multi flavored cheesecake selection which came with a warning not to share with me. Guess my kids don’t want to be responsible for a diabetic ER visit. LOL
On to the games…..trivial pursuit played in teams. You’d think oh, that sounds simple. Trust me, its an hour to organize…first the teams have to be selected on the basis of “not all the smart people can be on a team” which leads to a distinction of who the perceived “smart people” are. Joe was the wild card this year because no on e knows the level of his trivial pursuit smarts though I had an idea he’d be a good player because he knows more about random, odd things than anyone I’ve ever known. Chris managed to insult Juliet though she knew what he meant when he said “Juliet needs to be paired with a smart person)….lol He meant because he thinks that she might not know as much about American culture being from Mexico..she got that…the rest of us stopped and a moment of silence occured when he uttered that and we braced ourselves. Andy’ said “ well I guess I get my bed back tonight since Chris will be on the couch” and Jesse’s “Uh, its gonna take a few years to dig out of that one” prompted laughter , Juliet’s the loudest. And prompted me to tell the story of a few years ago when everyone thought t he rapture was gonna happen like the next day. Chris and Juliet were driving somewhere and Chris who was driving said “Juliet, when the rapture happens I’ll be gone so you need to grab the steering wheel so you don’t wreck” prompting her to say “I’m going too Chris”. LOL I remember that because the next day (the gonna happen day) I got one of the best compliments I’ve ever had in my life when Chris called me and I said Hello and he said “OH good. You’re still here. I knew if you were still here the rapture hadn’t happened because I know God’s taking you”….
Three hours of competition followed. Joe fell asleep after demonstrating his trivial skills and I found him a bed and tucked him in. There’s no way to prepare someone for their first LaFave Christmas. Even an earlier nap didn’t compensate for the chaos and the overeating. Shelly was not nearly as lucky getting her grandkids to bed. LOL At one point our teams had names the fireplace team , the couch team, the bench team and the triangle team so named because their members refused to get up from their comfy spots and actually sit next to their team thus they were at different coordinates around the room. And I discovered if you say bench really fast and loudly so that you can be heard it may sound a little like another B word that rhymes with itch., thus when Connie(who was on the bench team and captain of it) heard me yell “+it’s the Connie Bench team turn at which time the room went silent as she turned to me and said “well that’s not very nice LeeAnn” and everyone else who heard what she thought she heard froze in silence it was another funny moment.
And though it wasn’t funny when Anna turned green and announced during the game that she needed to throw up and ran down the hall followed by Connie and Eric we all had a good laugh when Andy went to check on them and came back to announce “its like spaghetti warehouse down there” it sent the rest of us into a fit of giggles that lasted at least as long as the puking. When Anna re-emerged and said “I shouldn’t have eaten 15 meatballs” another round of the giggles happened and when she asked who won the game and we said “your team got disqualified while you were throwin g up” her face was sad but priceless as she said to me “I got disqualified for meatballs?” Maybe you had to be there but trust me Anna felt better immediately after puking and we barely missed a beat…..Jesse warned everyone that was still there to avoid the lukewarm bacteria filled small balls of meat and well there went the giggles again.
Though we didn’t make it to our record of 1 a.m.everyone was ready to go home an rest by 11:30 or so. For the little ones, Santa still had to come (and assemble) and most of us had a short drive to get home to our beds. I woke up Joe and we headed to Kingfisher where I expected to find my Dad and Deronda soundly asleep with the porch light on. Instead, my dad was sitting in his recliner, reading his birthday cards, talking about the party and the kids and waiting for me to bring him the journal my niece Jenna had given him as a gift which contained “memories” from all the family members. As he read aloud the stories each kid and grandkid had written, I can honestly say he was glowing with happiness. Joe headed to bed and Deronda and I laughed ourselves silly at what the grandkids had written about. Him letting them operate dangerous trenchers when they were young, to sending them boxes of sugary cereal by UPS , to the telling one of them they were adopted, to angrily demanding a new steak without grissle and leaving a $2 tip each memory was priceless and he laughed so hard his chair shook. When her read Anna’s comment I laughed the hardest because I was with him and her for this one and there’s a “the rest of the story” ending to that one…suffice to say she got what she wanted and I personally apologized to the order taker later” she wrote “ the time we went to McDonalds drive thru and I wanted a McGriddle but you kept saying a McPancake and the order guy said We don’t have McPancakes and you said “oh Hell, just forget it”. That’s the cliff note version. It actually was a 10 minute back and forth with my dad yelling at the menu board and order speaker that they did too have McPancakes all the while Anna and I trying to tell him, no dad, no papa its called a McGriddle). Maybe you had to be there. It really was funny once we made sure the berated order taker was not traumatized. LOL
Thanks to all of my family who made the night special…for Garry and Shelly for hosting the chaos, for Jimmy and Jackson making the 8 hour drive from Austin to be there for the 80th party, for Robert and Misty for sharing your adorable grandkids and Justin with us this year and for Connie who always anticipates and brings extra bingo gifts for those who forget and helps make sure the puppet all arrive for the puppet show even though it means lugging an extra box of stuff every year. For all the nieces and nephews and my kids and for Joe and my Dad and Deronda. The “year of the meatball” as Jenna has dubbed it has come and gone and we’ve all gone our separate ways….until we meet again, I love you all, stay safe and God bless you.
P.S. As I sat typing this I smelled meatballs. Joe had warmed up leftover spaghetti and meatballs for himself. Since he slept thru and hadn’t heard of the Meatball Incident last night he had no idea when I started laughing what I was laughing at. And when he offered me some, I passed. Don’t think meatballs will be on my menu for some time to come. I think I’ll let him eat before I make him read my blog. LOL
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