Piñata Christmas

A few days before Christmas my aunt emailed me and told us to "bring a stick" to Gainesville. Dustin was sure she meant selfie stick but I had a feeling she meant an actual stick. Either she had something fun planned or she was losing her mind. Thankfully it was the former. 

Dustin and I got to Gainesville around 9:30 and everyone was up and ready to go. My mom greeted us with flashing Christmas bulb earrings she found at Walgreens. The only ones missing were Hayley and Stephen. Stephen is training and competing (Cyclocross) in Belgium until Spring so Hayley decided to spend the holiday over there. We of course missed her/them but it wasn't so bad thanks to technology. She facetimed us soon after we arrived and got to partake in some of the shenanigans. I distinctly remember my aunt telling her "We miss the sanity you bring..." Ain't that the truth!

We decided to have everyone open their presents from her so she could watch and see their reactions. My mom went first. A few weeks ago she picked up a pizza from Little Caesars and much to her dismay realized only too late that they had given her a thin crust (which she despises). She did what most do in this day and age and took her frustration to Facebook. Well, Hayley remembered that post and turned it into a hilarious Christmas present wherein she drew a pizza on her gift tag and gave her a gift card to get the right pizza. Hayley really nailed it with that one. 

She stayed on the phone just long enough for us to all open our gift from Santa...a giant Trump piñata head. Now the whole stick talk made perfect sense. My aunt found the sucker on Amazon and said it frightened her when she actually got it in the mail. I BET. We were all counting down the minutes we could get our swing in. 

Hayley hung up due to poor connection and the rest of us kept opening gifts. My mom wanted to listen to her new Hanson Christmas CD I got her but my aunt's CD player wasn't working. It actually almost swallowed my mom's CD but tech support Grey was able to recover it. 

Dustin and I had to leave by 2:30 since the Steelers were playing at 4:25 Christmas Day which rarely happens. So we ate an early Christmas lunch. Dustin made the lasagna but I totally helped layer it. Ok he actually did 99% of the work but still. We even made a small gluten-free dish for Grey. My aunt paired it with some bread and salad and voila! 

We got so so lucky this year with the perfect weather. It was in the 50s/60s all day and sunny. We ate out on the deck. The weather was gorgeous and the food was delicious. The talk of nude Twister and mail order brides made it that much better. 

Since we had to get going soon we got to the main event. HITTING TRUMP WITH A BAT. There are so many things I hate about America but being able to freely peacefully protest like the kneeling NFL players or hitting a piñata that looks like our gross President is a pretty rad thing that I don't take for granted. My mom went first (for the wall), I went second (for all the women he grabbed), my aunt went third, and Dustin split his piñata face in half with the final blow (because FUCK YOU). My aunt had Grey fill up the piñata with gold coins and andes because they were the closest thing she could find that resembled dollar bills. HA! As fun and silly as it was it was also surprisingly therapeutic. 

Another Christmas in the books. Can't wait to see what next year has in store.