Unlike how I had performed gifting ceremonies as a child, my family unit had adopted a slightly different approach than I was used to by having the primary package eviserations br done on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas Day. Mostly this was due to the fact that we were always visiting my husband’s family and that’s how they did things there
This year however we had no travel plans, but I realized Iris had gotten accustomed to doing the gifts on Christmas eve now and her expectations needed to be met to some degree.
At my mother’s behest, I did the whole elf on a shelf gig with my kid for the twelve days leading up to the big day. I’d write a little poems and give her a little hint about her big gift with sticks I ordered of her favorite show Bee and Puppycat. She loved it.
Then on Christmas Eve itself we went on a drive to look at lights, and I arranged the gifts so it would like like Santa had visited while we were gone. When we returned , we got down to business. She ended the day totally blissful about her new poster and puppycat stuffy, she got lots more but those things were actually probably the hardest to pull off as it’s not super well known content yet. The kid got her dad a dragon mug, and I got him a puzzle book, Adventures In The Abyss A Dystopian Activity Book In The Modern Age. He loved it, we spent the whole next day working through what we could.
As for myself, I didn’t have any gifts to unwrap but that’s okay, we got a shiny new playstation and I got to pick out a lovely little terrarium of eye flowers from my lady friends newly opened etsy shop.
The following morning was a lazy start day before I got going cooking the dinner goods, I ran a few plates over to some of out neighbors for hospitality sake. Made our rounds of family calls and established some budding plans for a trip to Mexico with his side of the family in the following year, and a Montana trip for a family reunion on my side.All in all, the food was good, we had a nice time and it felt great not to have to deal with any of the travel hubs this year.