12.24.2011: Christmas Eve Riedman Party

The Riedmans all gathered at Gramma & Papa's house around 2pm today....a little earlier than usual!  The party started out with a little Christmas BINGO.  The kids all played and there were even prizes for the winners (ok, all of them!).  They really liked playing, and as you can see Papa did too! :)  He was Nana's helper....or maybe she was his?? The game ended when there were no more M&M's left to use as the markers....seems as though they were slowly disappearing....hmmm, I wonder where they were going?

We all went outside to take some family pics before dinner...but the lighting was kinda crazy so they didn't turn out great.  The shadows were everywhere because of the sun at the time.  There was no real getting around it...but it was the best time to do pics...for every other reason besides the lighting!!

After pics, we had an early dinner that everyone had contributed to...then went straight into presents!!!  We always do our own presents first, then do the White Elephant gift exchange.  The gift exchange is usually hit & miss depending on if the crowd feels like thievery.  We had some good steals this year so it was fun.  After all the gifts were opened, and we were all full of dinner & desserts...we helped clean up and left Gramma & Papa to sleep off & recover from the busy day!

The beautiful house at night!!  This is what we had to reconstruct in the freezing cold earlier this week....all well worth it though! The spirit of Christmas can never be destroyed!!  :)