Something Silly......

A few nights ago we had a small zoom "party" and before it started I asked everyone to come prepared to share one of their weirdest holiday memories. Something that just didn't go right. A really horrible gift, a meal that was a disaster, the year the tree fell down....anything that you never wanted to repeat! It was a laughter filled zoom!

And one of the memories Dave and I shared was our annual Ugly Angel Contest. I start by explaining that Dave's lovely mom belonged to a group at her church who made felt Christmas ornaments for an annual fund raising effort. The ladies worked for months and the holiday gift "shop" made lots of money every year. She always made an extra ornament for our tree. Every year the ornament was unwrapped, accepted with love on our end and put on our tree. Sometimes we had to "swallow" pretty hard to keep from laughing and to give her a warm "thank you Mom"!

Privately we began to have a new game included in our annual holiday open house. We called it "The Ugly Angel Contest". All of the ornaments were displayed on a piece of poster board with their name underneath....guests were asked to vote on the one they thought was the ugliest.

For awhile it was Raunch Angel who took the prize....and she now resides at our son's house and decorates the back of his family tree.

She won until the year Pig Angel showed up. The game continued for several more years.....but when we realized that Piggy took top honors each Christmas we finally stopped. No ornament came close, and this felt beauty now boasts a place of honor in the back of our daughter's family tree.

We finally told Dave's mom about our little tradition and she took it in good spirits and with a laugh. She was just happy she and her friends provided us with a unique and fun family holiday game.