#723 Christmas Eve Eve.

Since this year’s rotation will take us to Ben’s parents’ house for Christmas Eve, we spent tonight pretending it’s Christmas Eve with my family. First we looked at the lights in the 1964 Catalina per our usual Christmas tradition:

On our way back we drove past our new house where Clark and Ben did some reconfiguring on the Christmas tree in our yard that was a little cattywhompus from the wind.

When we got home, it was suppertime—mama’s barbecue pulled pork sandwiches with rotel and slaw. Turns out this is an amazing combination.

 Bub giving little mama some Christmas sugar.

Baking a red velvet for Sunday 

Then it was time to open presents.

We gave daddy a vinyl record player that records to your computer and creates MP3s. He has died and gone to heaven because we can now “press his albums into tapes.” Except mama or I have to do it for him since he doesn’t “compute.”

“You mean… To tell me… With this machine… I can press my old albums… Into TAPES?!” 

Ben got a fancy schmancy monogrammed leather catchall for his wallet and what-nots:

Mama mislabeled a present. I opened a gun cleaning kit. Then my brother took it away from me.

Then I got to open my real present. I had no idea…

Then…

I saw Pottery Barn on the box.
 

The cool vintage sign from their catalog that I was gearing up to just do myself—mama got it for us!

Daddy (for some unknown reason) slipped a hideaway key holder in her stocking as a goodie. She opened it and said, “Uh… Where are the diamonds?”

I don’t remember laughing so hard opening presents in my whole life.

After this, Daddy coaxed me to stay up and try recording one of his albums, Merry Twistmas by Conway Twitty. We were up until 1:00 am, and he just stared into the computer screen as the scratchy record spun round and round, remembering Christmas in the 1980s. I’ve never seen the man happier.