Cole and Grape Juice and Christmas Eve Gifts

Here is a stack-o-presents. One for each member of the Brown house. We open one gift on Christmas Eve. These are not yet wrapped but I thought they looked kinda pretty on my cabinet next to one of my favorite photos of my children. The photo was taken on Sullivan's Island by a local Charleston artist about seven years ago. Our family was a little over half-way done back then. At that time, Cole was the little Brown who needed to be watched the most(heehee) We were meeting patricia there to model for her for a new oil painting series she was about to begin. We were friends with her through the art gallery we owned at the time. I was so prepared. I had everyone's white clothes ready to go the night before, a white blanket ready to lay baby kamryn on. My white dress too cause she thought I was a good pregnant lady model. I even got up that morning and hid the purple grape juice in the fridge under the sink because I knew Cole, in his white clothes, would be searching through the fridge for it. Richard wanted to make a good impression on her and not be late because she did alot of framing with us. Plus he's nice and hates to be late. We were all ready to go out the door and I realized Cole was no longer in my sight. You guessed it. Cole found the grape juice. Opened it. Drank straight from the container and spilled half it down his clothes. I stripped his clothes off, grabbed the Oxy Clean, drenched it in the sink and watched the purple vanish pretty quickly. Then straight to the dryer it went. It was perfectly clean looking and dry in record time and although we were a few minutes late, we pulled up at the same time as our friend. Anyway, that's what I think of when I see that photo.

As for those gifts, I think I'll wrap them and put them under the tree. We are the only people I know who never put any gifts under the tree til time to open them. We always have a family member who has the age and moral capacity to not care of the feelings of others should they just happen to rip into all the gifts. I think I'll let these ten be our "test" gifts to see if we're ready to have some presents out and under the tree.