A Christmas Story, Chapter 1

Ughh, I swore I was gonna keep up with the blog so I wouldn't have to cover our whole Christmas vacation once the festivities were over, having to recall the details of each day's events, sure to leave out some of the finer points of Alex's first Christmas experience...But alas, I got lazy and here I am trying upload a zillion pictures and narrate the less obvious ones before another day passes and my load becomes even heavier. As per my usual m.o., I'll have to break it down into chapters so I don't go crazy trying to finish it all at once.

So, Saturday...

We drove up to Bauxite...er...Benton...er...someplace near Little Rock for the 50th anniversary of Vicki's cousin and her husband. "We" included Tim, Alex, and I, Bill, Vicki, Leah, Mamaw Meador, Tim's cousins Ashley and Amber, Amber's husband Brad, and we met up with Timothy's Uncle Danny and Aunt Nancy when we got there. Alex met a few more of his kinfolk there, although I won't even try to describe how they're related to him, because I have yet to sort out the intricacies of the Meador/Evans family tree.

We made a pit stop at Hardee's before we got there and A got to hang with Amber, Brad and Ashley Kaye. It was pouring rain by the time we left, and seeing as how I forgot to bring any of Alex's ten thousand hats, we had to improvise when we took him out to the car.

The anniversary party was more of a reunion of sorts, so we all had to be on our best behavior to represent Eldo. Alex's mission was to keep Mamaw out of trouble. He wasn't totally successful (rumor was that she spiked the punch), but he tried his hardest to keep her occupied with his charm and wit.

Good times.

Although we knew the party just wouldn't be the same once we left, we had to get back to the house in Eldo for the Bunko party that Vicki had planned. It was scheduled for 7 o'clock, so A only got to socialize for a little while before he had to go to bed. We were skeptical about whether he would be able to sleep through the clamor of an enthused Bunko crowd, which, in past years, has been known to produce sounds that top 100 decibels. We were tempted to test the range of our monitor and put him to bed at Auntie Leah's house down the street, but we decided to give it a try at Grammy's first and then resort to plan b if necessary.

Turns out, A is a much deeper sleeper than we had given him credit for. He snoozed through hand clapping, table slapping, dog barking, hooping, hollering, and cow bell ringing. Everyone was rather impressed that we had failed to wake him, and I was happy that he didn't have to spend the night alone at Auntie L's. (That's a joke, btw. Don't go callin' DHS on me...)

The night ended after much fun and debauchery, most of which was inspired by these five hooligans: