This year, we started a new tradition with my wife’s family. In past years we had played a Shop and Swap Christmas Game on Christmas Eve, where everyone goes somewhere, splits up, and buys a little gift (under $5) for every other player. At the end, we would go home for lunch, wrap the presents, and have a mini-pre-Christmas before church and bedtime. This year we decided to change it up.
My wife and I came up with a list of 8 things and we split into two teams after a nice Christmas Eve breakfast together. I was on a team with my wife’s two sisters, Ruby, and my nephew Avery, My wife was on a team with her mother, Edward, and our brother-in-law Dave. The list was as follows:
1) Buy a gift for each member of the other group. (This way we all still get one thing to open at lunch.)
2) Sing a Christmas Carol to a store clerk.
3) Take a group picture with a Santa.
4) Take individual pictures of each group member standing on a rock on Church Street.
5) Take a picture of someone in the group holding a holiday DVD.
6) Take a picture of someone in your group wearing the ugliest Christmas sweater you can find.
7) Take a picture of 3 kings.
8) Take a video of your group dancing around a Christmas Tree.
It was a huge success. Everyone got to spend a fun hour out among the bustling Christmas Eve shoppers, embarrassing themselves and laughing, and we ended up with a lot of great photo and video memories that I obviously edited into a video montage set to holiday music. I can’t wait to see how the game evolves next year, when we pass the organizational reins off to another family member, but either way I think we have found a great new tradition that we’ll be playing years from now. Merry Christmas everyone!
You all are so cute! Merry Christmas!