Family Christmas Party

As I have mentioned previously, this past Saturday was my family Christmas party. Every year, I have a great time. This year was no exception. I love getting together with my family, I've always been close with all of them.

Obviously, as anyone who knows me will tell you, I had my camera with me. And I got a lot of great pictures. Then Lexie swiped it while I was busy drinking Black Cherry Twisted V's and took about 100 MORE pictures. Which brought the grand total to about 140 or so pictures. I know, it's insane. But I love love love pictures, especially ones I'm not in. Funny thing is, though, my one cousin Stevie (oops, I mean STEVE. He is almost 30, after all) kept trying to avoid the camer, because he "didn't want to wind up on my blog." Well, guess what? For all his hiding, he posed with me and Lexie for what turned out to be one of the ONLY pretty-good pictures I have of myself. So guess what, Steve? YOU'RE ON THE BLOG!! HA!!!

A lot of my pictures also contain very cute small children. Because our family members invariably produce ADORABLE offspring. I bought little gifts for the youngest ones, and obviously my taste is dead on, because they all LOVED their gifts! See how happy my cousin Karyn's son Bennie is with his little monkey? He was making monkey noises at it and everything!! And yes, Karyn is pregnant - with her FOURTH child. But don't worry, Kar-bear, I won't make any *cough* you're nuts *cough* rude comments here! And look at how sweetly my cousin Mike's son Sam is looking up at him. Sheer adoration for dad. (Someone should tell Sam how his dad used to torture his Aunt Karyn and I when we were kids.)

Now, as I mentioned before, Lexie got a hold of the camera, so we also have about three dozen pictures of Kendall, who Lexie is partial to. Can't blame her, really, Kendall is a cutie. And the only girl baby of the bunch - so far... who knows who's lurking in my sister-in-law's belly there?? I hadn't seen Sarah since my birthday (which was only a month ago - but seems longer!) and there have apparently been some "big" developments since then!! But she looks really good, and as you can tell, my brother is pretty happy too. And looking snazzy in sapphire, may I add.

There were two highlights of the evening, first my cousin Rich and his wife Kris announced that they are adopting a baby boy from Russia. I think that is sooooo wonderful, and they are going to be great parents. Everyone was really excited, and wished them well through the whole process. I don't know much about it, although I'm sure any adoption process can be really grueling, but well worth it. How cool is that??

Second, my cousin Emily got up and read a brief description of her family's gift to my grandparents. But before I tell you what it is, a little family history. See, my grandfather (Poppops) is in his 90's and is a very proud German. Although EVERY YEAR there is a family picnic hosted by the Bychowski's. When questioned why our German family picnic was hosted by the Bychowski family, and whether or not we were, indeed, Polish as well as German, Poppops tends to get very defensive and explains that we are NOT Polish, the Bychowski's took our family in during "The War" and became LIKE family to us. End of story. No one really ever believed him, and it's always been a fun way to tease Poppops. So anyway, Emily proceeds to read this document which states that Grandma & Poppops are going to have their genes researched through the National Geographic society, and the results will be posted online for everyone to see. And that the world will finally know, once and for all, whether or not there is any Polish blood coursing through our German veins. Obviously, the entire family cracked up, except for Poppops, who as you can see looks a little nervous in my opinion. Someone had better make sure he doesn't try to switch his DNA.

Yep, it was a great party. And guess what? Cousin Tom decided to go the more traditional route and have beef and pasta rather than raccoon and goose. Wise choice, I say. And the Twisted Christmas carols went over as well as can be expected, since hardly anyone could hear them over all the socializing anyway. Yep, I've got a pretty great family - and they look good too, dont'cha think?