Christmas and cutthroat UNO.

All in all, I would have to say everything went great yesterday. Everyone seemed to have a great time, especially the kids. By midmorning, it looked like Christmas had thrown up all over our living room. Alannah got herself a new keyboard, an iPod, enough lip glosses for an army of pre-teen girls, and the arbitrary token couple of peg-legged dolls known as Bratz. Ryan ended up with an arsenal of new stuff to torment the cats with: a radio controlled Ram truck that is only a fraction smaller than our Durango, a nerf dart gun and a roboreptile that apparently "stalks" prey...Oooo boy...the cats are gonna LOVE that one, I'm sure...

We all had a great time watching the kids play with their new stuff, and had a nice dinner together, sufficiently stuffing ourselves until we burst on lasagna and all manner of cookies, candies, egg nog....

Then it was on to our new gift that had been marked "to all of us": Uno Attack. Let me just tell you that this game is a laugh riot. At least in our house with our family.

A regular game of Uno can bring along with it no short supply of laughs, despite all the scheming, plotting and sabotage that is deliberately brought down on those least suspecting victims. But this new game takes it to new heights. In addition the people playing on either side of you plotting your demise, a contraption now barfs out random amounts of cards with the tap of a button. In the classic game, if you came up short the card you needed, you only had to live with taking one card from the draw pile. With this new style, you may get lucky. You could hit that button and maybe no card will come out. Or maybe not. In most cases, you tap that button and anywhere from 2 to 9 (or more!) cards can shoot out at you.

Where before, the most eeeevil card in the game was that wild draw 4 card, with this one there are a couple to be on your guard for: the wild "all hit" card that when played, means everyone at the table has to take their turn tapping that button; the hit X2 card, the wild hit until the dispenser spews forth some cards card, and the dreaded TRADE HANDS card. This card has got to be the single most hateful card in the deck. And it comes in every color.
When played, the person who was lucky enough to hold it can switch hands with any person at the table. You could be sitting peacefully, minding your own business yet trying your damndest to conceal your excitement (and your two or three cards) when outta nowhere you are being told to swap hands with someone across the table who has 30. It gets pretty ugly. Only in a lighthearted way for most of us though. Of course, I gotta admit, there were a couple of hairy and borderline questionable moments for a couple people a couple of times.

Seriously, we all had fun, and before we knew it, everyone had gone back home and we were left to pick up the wreckage of toys, boxes, wrapping paper and little orange darts from the floor...and walls...and a couple pictures hanging there. We were wiped OUT. But only in the best way you can be after a nice day. We dropped like a ton of bricks, ready to relax....

That is, until Ryan started firing off foam nerf darts at one of our cats in the kitchen. His michievous little laugh gave him away. When asked why he was shooting at the cat, he replied with a "but the gun just shot it out that way." Four times?

Yeah right.