"Pollyanna Santa"?

  Pollyanna Santa is a North Carolina colloquialism for the game of drawing numbers and exchanging small gifts around the tree in a group atmosphere. I first played it years ago at the office where it was called "Dirty Santa"  and I have heard it called "Cutthroat Santa" also. Fortunately, it seldom gets to those traits when played as a parlor game with the family. I married into the family almost twenty years ago and we have played it every year since. You are lucky if you draw a high number and you get to pick late in the list. When your number comes up, you can take someone else's gift who preceded you or you can open a new present from under the tree.
   When we played it at Granny's house, a gift could only be claimed 3 times by another player. If your gift is claimed, you can go claim someone else's gift or choose a new one from under the tree.
Granny lives with us now, so we play by Granny's rule.
   This year was somewhat uneventful, but I added the requirement that you had to wear either the Santa hat or the elf hat. As usual, we had a lot of fun and no one played too "dirty". Many of us let Bennett open our presents and he was hilarious as he ripped and tore off the wrappings. We had a good Christmas and had a lot of family fun! Hope you did too. Here are some of the pics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was Christmas Again!

    With four of our children in California and one in Florida, our prospects for Christmas seemed lackluster until the Florida clan decided to come to North Carolina for the holiday. We know they are all busy, they have lives to live and it is not easy to drop everything and travel for a few days. If they only knew how much it meant to us, it might have made them feel better about it. It made our Christmas.
   Christmas through the eyes of a child is a wondrous thing to behold. Watching that wondrous thing is a sight for old eyes to treasure. I hope that you had the pure, unadulterated pleasure that we experienced on this wonderful holiday. We were able to distance ourselves from the daily grind and  focus on what is really important. We laughed at the antics of a precious child and our hearts glowed with the joy of sharing the wonder. Having the little guy around made it feel like Christmas again.
   Wishing all a happy new year and much joy to accompany the trials and struggles that we will experience over the coming year. It is our wish, from the bottom of our hearts, that God will bless you all.