To Grammi's House we go - Man eating Alligators Part II

To futher our vacation and save on fundage after spending 2 days at the Nick hotel and visiting SEA-freakin-WORLD (can I tell you again how excited I am) - we are driving 40 minutes east to my grandmothers house to spend a few days with her...

Now my grandmother lives in a "gated" community (if you call Barney Fife at the guard house "gated") that is full of retired military officers - after my Poppi died my grammi met a nice widow man who gave her a 2 carat rock and ended up whisking her away to the land of the man eating alligators...the retirement community is quite a site to behold. We were last there about 2 years ago at Thanksgiving time - at which point when we pulled up into their driveway we were greeted with a 6 ft' tall dancing Santa on the porch...

NOW...the winter before that my great aunt (who went down to Fl. to visit my Grammi (her sister) one December for the holidays and wound up marrying my grandmothers next door neighbor about 7 weeks later...this however, is not a weird story in my family - oh we have CLOSETS full of wackiness in my family - maybe one day I will blog about them) had - I KID YOU NOT - a REVOLVING pink tinsle christmas tree on her front porch that my grandmother said was the epitome of tackiness...

hummm - 6 ft tall dancing Santa or a revolving pink tinsle tree - pretty much a draw to me on the Tacky-o-meter...

Anyway - when we arrived there was a gift at Santa's feet for PWG and TW - a little bag with a Minnie visor and a few pieces of candy...not bad...not tacky...just right...if only the madness would have stopped there...BUT NO...everytime we left the house a "gift" would magically appear at Santa's feet...

The thing is my grandmother is very frugal...I readily admit that I myself am quite frugal and I do see that the apple didn't fall to far from the tree...BUT...the gifts were quite interesting becuase it looked as if she manged to hit all the 75% off Easter crap...and you know when something is marked down to 75% off after Easter it really is the dregs...the worst were these paper-machae bunnies with what looked like rotting fur stuck all over them...with red beady eyes...

Whie the gifts were bad...try corralling two 3 year olds in a house full of small hummels and tassles...the woman has these small figurines, many of which I am sure costs a pretty penny (she spends big bucks on a piece of kitsch but yet when milk is on sale for a .25 off she buys like 5 gallons and then sticks them in her freezer - note if you ever visit my grandmother - don't drink the milk)...and the tassles - she has these big-ass tassles hanging from every doorknob...of course a 3 year old is going to be drawn to it...and regardless what my grandmother says just because you say "don't touch" doesn't mean a 3 year old is going to listen...

So it will be a very interesting trip...in talking to my gammi she mentioned something about a visit from Jolly Old St. Nick...I need to remember to pack my Tylenol...because if we drive up and a dancing Santa is there to greet us I am going to need a hocking huge bottle...

Oh yeah to top everything off - my sister K and her boyfriend M are joining us on this trip - her boyfriend - who is moving in with her in a few months...even though they are not engaged...should be a fun time at my grandmothers house...I do believe the exact words from her mouth when I was living with my husband pre marriage (HOWEVER - we were engaged with a wedding date) were "Why should he buy the cow when he is getting the milk for free"....

Oh K - are you MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOing??????