Christmas at the Knecht House

On Christmas Eve mom came over to hang out. Of course puppy is always a part of every holiday. We all had coffee with special flavors. I gave Scott two Dunkin Doughnuts coffees - Chocolate Glazed Doughnut and Vanilla Nut. Grace of course loves the Pumpkin Spice and I love making a mocha with eggnog.

We played Nertz a card game very similar to Dutch Blitz. First we played with my mom and after she left we played for another three hours. Travis moved out on his own two days after Christmas last year. My favorite present this year was that he came and spent the night with us to wake up Christmas morning with us. 

Now that the kids are older a couple of years ago we started opening up all the presents on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas Day. Being teenagers and young adults require more sleeping in, so this works out perfectly for us.

We taught Grace how to play Nertz this year and she has turned into a formidable player.

I asked the kids what they wanted to do this Christmas Eve and their response was play games, watch Home Alone 2, and drink hot chocolate.

Grace's presents this year revolved around her fandoms - Loki, Dr. Who, and Attack on Titan. For those who didn't know this about her, she collects hats. So this year the Dr. Who hat was added to the collection.

Her favorite present was the Loki poster.

Christmas morning we went to my sister's house for food, fun, and festivities. In the picture above is my newly married niece.

Grace was thrilled with her presents from her brother. He recently purchased a huge flat screen TV for his apartment. He decided for Christmas to regift to Grace his other TV and Xbox. She could have cared less that they were regifted. She has wanted a good TV for her room for years.

The highlight of my Christmas was the present I had picked out for my mother. Talk about fandoms, she is a huge fan of Adam Levine and The Voice. So I got her an Adam Levine gift bag with the People magazine with Adam on the cover, a Voice T-shirt that says Team Adam, a glossy photo of him, and the newest Maroon 5 cd (clean and edited version). She was so excited, it was like seeing a young child on Christmas morning getting the one gift they have always wanted.

My niece Danielle picked out the perfect gift for Grace.

We played a gift game. Lori prepared a wonderful meal of all of our favorites - spinach dip, nacho beef cheese dip, b-cue, pasta salad, slaw, and her famous chocolate pie.

And of course another game of Nertz. Only this time there were four couples playing. It was truly insane. This Christmas was probably one of the most fun in a long time and we didn't do a lot of presents.