It’s amazing that once my family started to arrive and started digging into all the food on the counters, my grinchiness disappeared. We had steak and chicken fajitas, both hard and soft tacos with all the fixins, queso dip and tortillas for dipping, spicy sausage balls, chicken bacon ranch crescent bombs, two different hams, two kinds of cheese and two kinds of bread for sandwiches, cookies, cake and pies. No one went hungry unless it was their own fault.

Our gifting always takes place after we eat but since two of our kids had other places to go, we didn’t get to dawdle too long. My daughter, the master of all things crochet, made hats for several of us and my son and grandson came in matching (but different colors) Christmas suits.

As the gifts were being divvied out, my pile kept growing. Wow, what a haul I was making! When it came time for me to open a gift (we open one at a time, youngest to oldest), my grandson picked out the one he wanted me to open. I reached into the bag and pulled out a framed picture. It looked just like a picture frame I had on the wall in my hallway, including the photo in the frame. I wasn’t sure what I was looking at until my son said “Didn’t you notice it was gone? We took it off the wall at Thanksgiving.” Well, no, I didn’t. Lol. That wasn’t the only thing they had pilfered from my house…a plaque from the wall in my sewing room, a framed photo from the television stand and a ceramic chicken from on top of the cabinet, all of which they wrapped up for me to open. I’m either not too observant or I have too much stuff. My daughter-in-law said she saw this on TikTok and thought it would be fun to prank me. It was.

But I got my older grandkids. My granddaughter was getting ready to open a small package when told her “Before you open that, just remember that what’s in there is very dear to me and comes from my heart.” She looked almost scared and then she took it out of the package…

and cracked up laughing. I gave identical ones to my older grandsons too.

Our day was short. Everyone was gone in a couple hours, but guess what? So was the Grinch…until next year. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!