There is a certain understanding between big families- a certain understanding and joyful acceptance of the utter chaos that ushers in Christmas. We don’t even attempt to organize get togethers. We simply state a time and place, bring a bunch of food,  and watch the event take on a life of its own.  Christmas Eve is a textbook example…on steroids.

Our surrogate extended family (kids ranging in age from 15 to 7) brought over Rockband for the Wii. My 5 year old happily – maybe even demandingly ( is that really a word?)- played the part of  lead singer. Only he doesn’t know any rock songs. What he does know, by heart,  is nearly every Christmas song known to man. So, while the older kids were playing “Run to the Hills” by Iron Maiden, my 5 year-old was singing the lyrics to The Twelve days of Christmas. When they played “Tom Sawyer” by Rush, my 5 year old graciously filled in with “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”.

Upstairs, the chaos continued. While the kids ran around, strummed, drummed and wailed, us adults played euchre.  The couple we play with are particularly skilled at this game. By “particularly skilled”  I mean telepathic.  But this time we played battle of the sexes style. The men beat the women….this time. Women are sore losers. Well, this women is. I hate to admit it, but it’s true. I forsee an ugly rematch.

Around 10:30, we pulled the plug on the rockers and everyone gathered ’round upstairs. Hubby read the story of Jesus’ birth from the book of Luke, and we lit candles and sang Christmas Carols. And, of course, I completely forgot to get pictures of the candlelit portion of our program. But we had a wonderful time. A nice, relaxing, warm time with close friends and good food. Well, as relaxing as Christmas Eve can be with 12 kids converging on rockband and a 5 year old belting out Christmas Carols to rock and roll toons.

As for chaos….Here’s a photo of the living room after all the present-opening was done the next morning. FYI, My hubby took about a hundred photos of all the action, only to realize that the SD card was still in my laptop, rofl, poor guy.

Merry Christmas!

Wuz

P.S. I don’t know why that first picture is stretched out. I am still learning how to use this stuff. But I am gonna fix it. Really, I am.