Back to stories and snapshots of Christmas in Texas...
No gathering of Campbell's would be complete without lots and lots of poker. We played poker for hours every night. As soon as the kids were down and the dishes were done, we were all at the table laying out our chips. This year, as usual, Marcus came away with the biggest pile of chips (he more than tripled what he started with), though no one person went too far in the hole to line his pockets :)
Since my brother's family planned to go back to their home in Fort Worth on Thursday and Friday (Dec 24 & 25) to celebrate Christmas with his wife's family, we did our Christmas at the lake house on Wednesday, December 23rd. For Christmas Eve, we watched the Veggie Tales Saint Nicholas video with the kids. We bought it at Walmart that afternoon having never seen it, and ended up liking it even better than we'd expected to. As I've mentioned before, I put a bit of effort into helping Caleb see this Christmas as a time of giving rather than a time of getting, and this video really reinforced that lesson. Then the kids all opened one present each before getting ready for bed. Caleb opened his Kidzone camera and Ethan opened his very real-looking cell phone with a working "voicemail" button, both gifts from Nanna and Papa. (Is this the age of electronics or what?) Both boys LOVED their presents and played with them nonstop until the bedtime drummer came drumming.
Christmas morning, we shared a big breakfast of bacon and eggs, etc, and then let the kids hit the presents. (We only did presents for the four boys this year.) The kids spent the rest of the day playing with their new toys. Thursday and Friday were really long, with Michael's family gone and NOTHING open in Gun Barrell City (even Walmart and McDonald's shut down Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. We almost went stir crazy and drove home on Friday, but ended up sticking it out for the last night and having one more great evening of poker with Michael and Jennifer on Friday night. The drive home on Saturday went pretty smoothly. We were amazed both ways how good the boys were in the car. Don't get me wrong, it was still several bars below fun, but it just wasn't as bad as it has been in the past.
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