White Elephant Christmas

On Christmas Eve, my family all goes to Wausau, WI to see my Grandma Ferge and the aunts and uncles and cousins. We trade "White Elephant" gifts that cost less than $5.00. For a twist, we spell out our last name. Last year was "F" so this year was "E". (Not the easiest letter.) The gifts have to start with the letter "E". Unfortunately, because of the weather, we decided to stay in town, so we traded amongst ourselves. Here is what everyone came up with.
1. Expresso Beans
2. Exotic Berry Wine Coolers
3. Eyeshadow
4. Elephant (stuffed animal)
5. Energizer Batteries
6. Electric Toothbrush
7. Exfoliating Heel Scrubber & Empty Tin
8. Eight O'Clock Coffee
9. Energizer Batteries (again)
10. Eclipse Gum
There were only 9 of us, but my mom supplied half the gifts including one extra. The person who drew #1 got to pick two wrapped gifts, choose from those, and put back the one they didn't want. Andrew was the lucky number 1. He unwrapped expresso beans and wine coolers. It was pretty funny! We supplied the electric toothbrush, which I am proud to say was as sought-after as the I-pod in The Office, Christmas Episode. Merry Christmas!

Blizzard

We had our first big snowfall of the year. We got about 8 inches. Andrew thinks it was more like 10 or 12... It looks like this one will stick around. We are not expecting warm weather any time soon. We used our brand new snowblower for the first time today and are glad to report that it worked great! My parents (who have lived in Wisconsin their entire lives) have never used a snowblower. We took it over to their house today and my dad grinned the whole time he was using it (sorry I didn't capture that one on film). Here are pictures of our house, front and back, and Andrew using the snowblower near the street. Our driveway is WAY too long...