Christmas-One more time

Yesterday we celebrated Christmas with Grandma Luckman. We had a great time and Ella was really good.

We did our big white elephant gift exchange- it was really fun. Ella got a talking bear - which she stole from her cousin Nathan. Joe got original oil paintings from his Aunt and a snow globe that holds pictures. We also got a candy dish with a gift card and ella got a beautiful yellow sweater from Great Grandma Luckman.

We managed to avoid the Indian portrait made of yarn and the green ceramic rooster -both were classic gift exchange material.

The most prized present this year was great grandpa Joe's bell. It was probably exchanged 5 times before Aunt Mavon ended up with it.

Well-after presents Grandma gave joe back some of his drawings that were being sold in aunt Toni's shop. One of them was called the "weeping rose" and the other 2 were of tissues, yep-just tissues. She actually almost sold the rose for $145 to some guy after telling an elaborate story about joe's cancer and how the discovery of his artistic talent was a product of his disease. They laid it on really thick, but the drawing never sold. So- joe- still pining for the bell- convinced aunt mavon and uncle chuck to trade it for his very special drawings of tissues and the rose. I don't know how aware uncle chuck was of the exchange. Hey- at least he went home with that sweet rooster!