Cluffmas '09

After Nial's wedding, we headed south down I-5 to good ol' Ashland, Oregon, to have Christmas at the Cluff homestead.


In attendance were my parents,


Dallas and Weston,

Tasha and family,


Daisha and family (sadly these are the only pictures that included them),




Shira and family,


and my family.





Dane's family popped in a few times also.

The festivities started a few days before Christmas. Mostly just catching up with one another, shopping and lounging around.

The highlight for the girls was making a gingerbread house, courtesy of Daisha's creative genius.


Three of the four girl cousins: Tabitha, Talea and Dru.


It's so funny how they stick out their tongues so differently!


On Christmas Eve we hit a matinee of The Princess and the Frog. If you've seen it, you've probably noticed that the princess' name is Tiana. Great. I'm not even black, southern or a jazz lover. Oh well. I love having an uncommon name, but there will probably be a rash of Tiana's being born now, just like Ariels and Jasmines. I guess my niece, Jasmine, can't say she's the only princess in the family now.




By the way, just try making your lips pucker when you're laughing! NOT an easy task.

The standard Christmas Eve tradition is the telling of the Nativity story, right? Well, most of the audience was quite young, so we thought a better way to tell it would be to act it out. My mom never lacks imagination and she lever lets an opportunity to direct go to waste,



so on Christmas Eve, she dressed the grandkids in huge Christmas sweaters and blankets for an impromptu nativity play.






Her house is crammed full of decorations and thematic clothes just for these "fun occasions." Though Paisli played baby Jesus in the play, she looked more like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, since her nose was scabbed over from the hotel bed accident.


Speaking of Paisli, I'm beginning to think she'll have the same tongue chewing habit that Kiersa has. I keep catching her doing it.



And here's Kiersa at it, but that's nothing new. She does this constantly.


And now speaking of Kiersa, she kept finding the strangest places to fall asleep...like under the piano.


Shira and Talea found a place to crash on the couch together.


On Christmas morning we had a huge crowd opening their stockings. There were a lot of white elephants exchanged. Probably the one most appreciated was the fart machine Daisha's family gave Hyrum.


Sooooo funny! I had Tasha going for several hours thinking I had uncontrollable gas. She was just glad she had a stuffy nose. I was laughing hysterically, and was quite sad to have to confess that I'd been using the machine the whole time. It had a remote and everything! Best gift ever! I've had a lot of good laughs from it.

Probably the biggest flop was the anti monkey butt powder I bought for Daisha's family.


Hyrum and I thought it was hilarious in the store, especially since I'm sure they don't have this stuff in England. I don't think English butts are crude enough for a monkey problem to dare to afflict it, but it never did manage to find it's way to England with the Lanyons. It was swiftly confiscated and put to real use in my parents' bathroom! I don't EVEN WANT to know who has monkey butt in that household!

I gave a girly bottle to Tasha also since there are only girls in her house, but she tried to sneak home without it.

I had to run it out to her as she was driving away! I mean, come on, I thought it was the perfect white elephant!! Who wouldn't want to pass anti monkey butt around at gift exchanges? Oh well, maybe a homemade gift will go over better next time.

Some real gifts were given too. Santa found his way to the Cluff house for our kids. Hyatt got some motorcycles that race, and Tilly got her dream present. Of all the things a 5-year-old girl could want for Christmas, Talea only asked for "Screature", a crazy lizard/dinosaur thing. What in the world?! Daisha, I blame this strangeness on you, since you would have asked for this as a kid. So Santa's elves made her a defective one (it refused to squirt water from it's mouth), but we were just fine with the absence of water, so we didn't request a return, though Tilly was disappointed that it wouldn't squirt people.



Daisha gave the girls a little piece of England to wear,

and Dairy Milk chocolate from England for everyone.


Santa brought Kiersa a pet she couldn't kill or be scared of: a zhu zhu hamster. We like hamsters, but they are a bit stinky and annoyingly nocturnal, and our last hamster we owned had a sad ending. It got loose and was then recaptured, but was so viscous afterward that we decided to let it go in a field to fend for itself.

A fake one seemed a much better option this time around.


Paisli is small enough that she doesn't care about presents, so Santa just gave her some kisses instead. She'll never know.

So after all the presents, it was time to hang out again. Hyrum and I thought it would be great to get some pictures of the two of us together, but they were turning out so lame that we found it more amusing to take crazy/silly/weird/gross/funny pictures instead.

Don't ask me why there is so much tongue. I can't stand tongues. I guess that's what we found amusing about these. Also, these are pretty much just for Shira's eye since she thought they were hilarious. I had a good giggle over them too, but most people will probably gag when viewing them. Just scroll past.





Kissey kissey



I am a bit of a biter.


Wink, wink!


Chuuuubbie!!!


Smile!


What is that smell???!!!



Lovin' on my love.


You're getting sleepy.


Just kidding! Wide awake!


Then Shira and I had to get one together also.


Okay, so this one did turn out sort of decent. As good as we could get anyway.


Finally, one of the last things I did while at the Homestead was make a Little Red Riding Hood cape for Tabitha to wear to school before she left, but I'm afraid that it may be cursed with my jinx and end up falling apart before the school year is out. I apologize in advance, Tabs.