Guest Post: Danielle's Awesome Family Christmas Tradition

While Rob and I are on vacation in Florida I thought I'd share some awesome blog writers with you.  This is my first guest post extravaganza so I hope you enjoy!  Today's post is from Danielle of Little Spindle!  Danielle emailed me awhile back to talk about our mutual "I love a military man" experience.  She and her blog are lovely, and I adore the story she's shared with you below.  Thanks Danielle!

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Hello To Make Love Stay readers! I'm so excited to be here today and hope that you'll come visit me at Little Spindle sometime :)

Caitlin asked me to write something holiday related and after thinking about it for awhile I decided to share the strangest (and probably most long lasting) family tradition that I could think of.

OK, so the story starts 52 Christmas Eves ago with this woman:

Gram

Picture it!

It's Christmas Eve and the family has just finished a big dinner around a beautiful dining room table at my great aunt and uncle's house, who my grandmother is staying with while my grandfather is away in the Army. She is 8 months pregnant with my mom at this point, but Gram has always been quite the prankster. But apparently the joke's on her this time because later in the evening while the family is opening gifts Gram is presented with a beautifully wrapped package and she can't wait to tear into it.

But to what do her wandering eyes appear?! Take a guess...you'll never get it!

Remember how the family had just finished a beautiful holiday feast? Well, apparently after the meal someone took it upon themselves to completely clean the turkey carcass (with bleach and everything) and wrap it up for my grandmother to open. Please, take a moment and imagine receiving what's pictured below wrapped beautifully on Christmas Eve 1959.

Ok, so that'd be a pretty strange story - if it ended there...but of course, because my family is insane, it's far from over!

Gram received this darn thing wrapped up beautifully three more times in the next two days. They all traveled from house to house visiting all of the cousins and every.single.time they sat down to open gifts, there is was AGAIN!!!

How is this silly story a family tradition you're probably asking?

Ever since, every few years the carcass (which has 1959 written on it) resurfaces, wrapped as a gift and passed to a different member of the family. The trick is, when you pass it along to the next person you have to do it on the sly. Two years ago when my mom turned 50 (the turkey's 50th anniversary) someone placed a "gift" into the backseat of my parent's locked vehicle during a family Christmas party and later on when my mom opened it we all DIED laughing.

Alright, awesome - so now that you know how strange my family really is how about you try not to judge me too terribly and hop on over to Little Spindle because I promise you that this is the only post I have ever written that has anything to do with well preserved bones of any kind.

Thanks Caitlin for having me and I'll understand if you never ask me to guest post here ever again...