My neighbors are the best neighbors of all the neighbors.

I told y'all I was going to write about Christmas Day with my neighbors.

Since we celebrated with my family on Christmas Eve, my mom, her husband and I accepted an invitation for Christmas Day to hang out with my awesome neighbors.  Everyone brought a dish or two, a bottle of wine or two, and my mom said she was fine with going down there for just a little while. I didn't tell her that once you get to their house you never want to leave because it is always a blast.  So we were there from 3:00 p.m. until 10:00 p.m.

When we first got there, the 7-year-old was just getting home from some of our other neighbors' where she had been playing with their daughter.  She was still in her pajamas and her parents didn't make her get dressed because she said she just wanted to keep wearing her pajamas while we ate Christmas dinner.  And that is only one reason her parents are awesome.

She did want to show us her new bike she got for Christmas.  So we went out in the driveway and watched her ride her bike in her pj's while their dog ran beside her with a big ball in his mouth.  Coco is a pretty awesome dog.  He also regularly steals beer and cigarettes from everyone.

We ate a wonderful meal and then as we were sitting around the dining room table, their daughter asked us if we would play some games with her.  And that is how my mom and I came to look like this on Christmas night.  And hello there, I'm apparently packing for a long international trip with those bags under my eyes:

After my mom figured out she was milk and I figured out I was a duck, and we played several more rounds of Hedbandz, we moved on and played another game.  We played Boom Boom Balloon and I am here to tell you that I now want my own Boom Boom Balloon to play at my house.  I think the adults had more fun than the 7-year-old.

But I also have to tell you about the funniest instructions I have ever seen in my life.  Ikea needs to take note so I will say less curse words when I'm assembling their products.

Santa had given the daughter a Barbie Dreamhouse.  It is gigantic.  I think it's 3 stories tall, has two or three elevators in it, etc.  And here are some instructions that were included with it (those white sticks go with the Boom Boom Balloon game - they have nothing to do with Barbie and her ridiculous house):

I know you can't read the instructions in that little picture, so Imma type 'em out for y'all nicely right now:

1.  Congratulations!  You are the lucky owner of a genuine Barbie Dreamhouse!

2.  Follow these simple instructions for hours....that is, hours of fun!

3.  Don't get discouraged.  Tell yourself you can do this?  [Yes, it has a question mark.]  Focus, focus, focus.

4.  Keep breathing.  It's just a few pieces....

5.  Now apply 1,000 stickers.

Piece of cake!  Wasn't that fun?

And that right there is why I'm simultaneously very sad and ecstatic that I have no kids and thus no reason to assemble gigantic toys for Christmas each year.

The daughter bonded with my mom in a major way over Hedbandz and Boom Boom Balloon and then she invited my mom to come back from Texas in March to attend her 8th birthday party.  They then decided it should be a Texas themed party and no one will be allowed in unless they are wearing cowboy boots and a cowboy hat.  I have a hat but no boots and I'm a giant and it's very hard to find boots for big calved people so I may have to paint boots on the bottom of my pants or something.

This all inspired the daughter to run to her room and change into jeans, a shirt, a denim vest, cowboy boots, and a hat.

And that's when the dancing started.  She danced with her mom.  She danced with my mom.  She danced with her dad.  She danced with an annoying guy who hangs out with us a lot.  She danced alone. 

And that's what made me ask my neighbors to put on their Billy Joel CD so they could sing their duet for us.  Because they love to sing a duet to this song:

They play piano together while they sing their duet.  And sometimes they play a horn:

And sometimes they just sing their hearts out with balloon people and chocolate chip cookies from a pizza restaurant on the table:

And then their daughter went and grabbed a guitar and joined them:

And then she played a guitar solo for all of us:

And this is the story of why I adore my neighbors more than a person should adore their neighbors.