Christmas preparations

I brought up all our decorations from the storage during last week & started putting it up around the house. The manger scene was first, and we've gotten a "fake" tree this year.. people here don't decorate til after December 1st.. but I wanted Christmas to last a little longer this time around.. We put up the lights in the window (no other neighbours have it yet, so ours stands out, but who cares) Correction: 2 other neighbours have lights.. but our window is in a central area for all to see.. so it stands out. Each year the adults in our family pick names out of the hat and get a gift for just that person, plus my mom, as she gets gifts for everyone: kids, grandkids & son's in law.. I think that's unfair, but she insists.

We had Christmas out our place last year, when we were renting a row house over 2 floors, so there was more space to set up play rooms for the kids, while the adults enjoyed some after dinner conversations. This year we have a much smaller place, so we're still thinking about it.. my mom's is bigger, but there's only 1 room for the kids to be in after dinner. Now that there are so many grandkids (10 in total) and 10 adults, it become harder to organize meals together, for lack of space.