Jessica highly frowning on Dallas trying to help her with her present

Ha ha, Dallas, only Grandma can help with presents

On Saturday my parents and my brother’s family came to our house to celebrate Christmas. Dallas and I made hot beef that we cooked for 10 hours in a slow cooker we were borrowing from Kristin. We also made hot cider and my parents brought sides and my brother brought drinks. Of course there was also tons of cookies and candies and snacks.

Guys doing what guys do

Richard & Amanda

Jessica & Amanda

After lunch we watched Elf and then we opened gifts. Most of the gifts were for my nieces Stephanie and Jessica and were from my parents, Dallas and me. Stephanie is getting so grown up. She’s finding her own style and grown up personality and she’s so tall and thin. She’s becoming a real teenager, her language riddled with “like”s and exclamations of “nice!” and with my brother and sister-in-law teasing her about going to her first dance. Supposedly the night of the dance Jessica was laughing hysterically that Stephanie was going to dance with a boy. Sisters! It sounds like there was a lot of shy standing around for Steph and her friends, though. What do you expect from an 11-year-old 6th-grader dance? My brother said Steph didn’t like the dance because the music was too loud and I guess Soulja Boy isn’t up her ally, so thankfully she’s got a little more growing up to do. Tweens!

Stephanie & Milo

A few weeks ago I asked my brother if he though Steph would like an iPod Shuffle for Christmas. He pointed me to her Amazon wish list and this is what I found (note the comment):

Looked like we were going to be favorites of the day! And we weren’t disappointed. Talking to Steph beforehand we asked what the best gift she could imagine for Christmas would be and she said it would be an iPod. Turning into the best actors in the world, we all guffawed like “oh boy, that’s a pretty big gift, I hope there’s something else you’d like!” So she was really surprised when she opened our gift to her. She gave us big hugs and was really happy.

Stephanie opening her new iPod

Jessica

Jessica is pretty much the opposite. All day long she wouldn’t talk to us, even when we asked her questions that were just “yes” or “no” answers. She wouldn’t smile or laugh. When her favorite scene in the movie Elf came on (when the “friendly” raccoon attacks Will Ferrell’s face), she had to hide her face so we wouldn’t catch her smiling. Jess has always been really shy around us, no matter how much we see her. I don’t know if it’s just us or if she’s like this around other people too. I know that at home and around my parents she’s perfectly fine. And we’ll hear her in another room with them and she’s chatting away and playing and totally fine, but then we come in and it’s all over. We are so mean and scary!

Jessica won’t smile

About 6 hours into the day, Jess did get more lively and talkative, playing games and even letting me help her try on new clothes she got as gifts. During the football game, she was even getting shushed. She’s such a nice, smart, fun kid, I just wish she’d let it all out. By the time she is herself around us, she has to go. And she’s never really gotten into being around Dallas except that one time when we were at Culver’s. Maybe we need to always have ice cream when she’s around or something. Or maybe we need to just take her and have her stay over for a weekend? Either she’d get over it or she’d be scarred for life, who knows.

Later on Jessica snaps out of it and has fun

We had fun hosting Christmas for the first time and had fun spending time with my family. Oh, and I got a slow cooker for Christmas so I can give Kristin’s back. If you have good slow cooker recipes, drop the links to them in the comments.

Jessica & Dad

Jessica & Dad goofing around. I think I see a smile!