Sak's Scraps: 298. Christmas Chaos

It has been one long day that did not involve nearly enough food nor caffeine for fuel, just mostly willpower (and some whining towards the end).

It took my brother and I took a while to get pumped about unwrapping the presents we had wrapped a mere 6-7 hours before and to get my family in the same room at the same time. And then we had a colorful and quick debate on whether or not we were going to take photos of us opening our gifts as is (in all our recently awoken glory) or whether we should start getting ready and take pictures all nicely done up. I strongly voted for the raw footage as it was how I always remember doing so growing up. We took horrid looking pictures of groggy us and we never really looked at them again let alone ever shown them to anyone. Lol. Why destroy that tradition? And that's how it happened. We opened our gifts, grabbed some quick breakfast, and then embarked on our mission to get everyone and everything ready.

We got to church (which is roughly 35-45 minutes away) about an hour and a half early (which is pretty late for us on this particular day), mass was 2.5 hours (longer than it has been in past years) and they are getting fancier with it in recent years from when I was regular XD, and we were there for another 3.5 hours for the after party in a tent that they set up in the parking lot. It is always a... sight to see and I can't even begin to explain that absolute cultural mayhem that ensues. To the untrained eye, it's pretty rough and insane. To the semi-trained eye (like mine) it's like a fascinating train wreck that we are so familiar with. And to many there, it's just how life is/ has been/ should be. Lol.

Here's pictorial stuff: