Christmas Adam

This is the first year of many that I haven't been home for the traditional sibling sleepover under the tree for Christmas Adam, the day before Christmas Eve.

In fact, no one will be home, not even that dumb little dog. And I will probably be sleeping at my house all alone tonight, with locked doors and space heater blasting.

Christmas Adam usually consists of lining all the presents up in, like, a bar graph, by person, to see who has the longest line. Plus, we have to get them all organized before Christmas morning anyway. Then we eat snacks and watch a Christmas movie, and when we were little, dad would start telling us to go to bed around what felt like 8pm. And then we play games in the dark. Our favorites are Sleeping Lions, Rock, and Steamroller. Sleeping Lions is where everyone is a lion, but the person who is "it" is the hunter. And the hunter tries to be really funny and make the lions "wake up" and laugh. The first lion to laugh is the next hunter. I learned that game from Mrs. Friz in second grade. Rock is the great game where you try to hold really still, except you are actually always moving, you just can't let the person who's "it" see you. So it turns into this hilarious game of people laying there, and when no one is looking, a random leg sticks up in the air, but no one saw it happen. And then you can't laugh, because then someone will see you move!

Lots and lots of giggling came from these games. And sibling sleepovers. And Christmas Adam. And now, tonight, it will not happen.

I'm going to St. George tomorrow, Christmas Eve. And I'm so excited to play games and look at lights and sing the traditional Spainhower family "Candy Free Christmas Tree" song that makes no sense and changes every year. And I'm excited to make a giant mess of sprinkles and frosting when we roll our and decorate Christmas cookies. I might be able to convince Elise to eat the cookie with Elmer's glue for frosting, like that one time.