So we’ve all seen the movie, Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn tackle the overwhelming 4 Christmas stops. Well, while I relate to so much of that movie, they’ve got nothing on us! This year’s Christmas festivities included not four, but eight family stops to celebrate the holiday. We vowed before we embarked on our first journey to not let all of the festivities prevent us from enjoying spending time with the people we love and to do our best to remember the true meaning of Christmas. All in all, I think we were pretty successful.
The festivities began on the 23rd, Allie was scheduled to work both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, so my family wanted to get in a little down time together before we all started moving in different directions. Mom, Allie and I started a new tradition this year–pre-Christmas baking. We got together at Mom’s house and made all sorts of goodies–nutter butter balls, oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, etc. Surprisingly enough everything was completely edible and I once again showed my need to be in charge. They are still giving me a hard time about my need to facilitate everything. After a little break, the whole crew got together for a little dinner. We spent hours at J. Alexanders eating tons of scrumptious food and partaking in a few beverages. It was a nice, relaxing way to prepare for the days ahead and I left feeling even more grateful for my incredible family.
One day down, three to go. Christmas Eve was the most intense day of all. Unfortunately Brad had to work on Christmas Eve so he missed out on our first stop. My family and I journeyed to Kat’s house for breakfast. Kat babysat my sister, cousin and me when we were kids and my family has eaten Christmas Eve breakfast with her for as long as I can remember. Despite the fact that she began preparing breakfast on Halloween (bless her heart, I wish I was kidding) we enjoyed seeing her and managed to make it out without any serious food poisoning. Later in the afternoon Brad and I went to his aunt’s house. Every year they have a huge gathering (family, friends, colleagues, the whole deal) and we always enjoy spending time with all of his aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews. There was a plethora of wine and good food (I couldn’t help but have 2 helpings of the mac and cheese) and I even managed to get away with an AWESOME dirty Santa present (I’m going to pretend that I didn’t go home with one of the gifts I bought, but whatever). Once those festivities began to wind down we ventured out into the monsoon and headed straight to my Aunt Donna’s house, we were nearing the home stretch. I enjoyed hearing about my cousin’s upcoming wedding and Brad always loves talking football with my dad and his brothers. Finally, as we all started feeling the effects of a long day, we decided it was time to call it a night and our part of the Walls family headed to my parents’ house. Allie remarkably didn’t have to go into work, so we were able to continue the tradition of everyone spending the night at Mom and Dad’s, afterall, Santa ALWAYS finds us there!
We woke up to an array of awesome gifts from Santa and my parents on Christmas morning. The whole family exchanged gifts (even Oliver and Allie’s pup Baxter) and we feasted on a huge breakfast! Christmas morning is always my favorite. Despite the fact that our family has grown over the last few years, Christmas morning always feels the same–its comfortable, sincere and filled with joy (as cheesy as that sounds) and I can only hope that Brad and I can give our kids with the same feeling someday. It’s really special to everyone in my family and my favorite part of the holidays.
After breakfast we headed to our house to prepare for the next round of family togetherness. We were hosting the Stripling family for a late lunch or early dinner, whatever you want to call it. While I love having everyone over, this gathering is always a bit of a challenge–me the lover of structure, hosting the fly by the seat of your pants, get there when you can, Striplings. I fully anticipated that the 3:30 lunch would actually be at 4:30 and that there would be some kinks, so I handled this year much better than usual (Brad not so much, but that’s another story). However, all in all I think everyone left feeling at least a little better than they did when they came. It’s always nice to see my sweet nieces and nephew and Carson even let us try out his new Pictionary game! The fam stayed until almost 11 p.m., so needless to say we were all ready for some rest at the end of a long Christmas day.
Rest, yes, a little, but slow down, not a chance. On to our final celebration–Christmas with my mom’s family. This is yet another opportunity for me to eat all of my favorite foods and to spend some quality time with my family that I don’t get to see nearly enough. Despite the fact that a couple of the usuals couldn’t make it, the family had a fantastic time. It was a welcome break in a lot of chaos and we actually had time to visit with one another and catch up on all that was going on in our worlds. Such a perfect ending to another wonderful Christmas season!
I realize now that I have typed all of this out, that it is entirely too detailed and that the odds of anyone reading it start to finish are grim, but nonetheless, I’m grateful for yet another fantastic Christmas with my amazing family. I didn’t do a very good job of getting a lot of great pictures, but I tried.
