If you know me, you should know that I am slightly in LOVE with Christmas! It's my favorite holiday ever! This year I put up 3 trees, bathrooms decorates, and got a Christmas Quilt on EVERY bed. Luckily Jason understands my need to decorate at Christmas. Of course our house was decorated completely within a few days of Thanksgiving, cause Jason won't let me decorate before hand...or I would!
The weekend before Christmas each year, we have my aunt, cousins, and my sister, brother-in-law, and Little Man here at our house to celebrate. We have a good dinner, enjoy each others company and then relax. This year, we even got a little snow that night, so it was semi-white! This year baby Kendall was a very welcome and surprising addition to our family. Last Christmas, Heather told us that she was pregnant which made us all extremely happy. Heather & Mike have tried for a long time to have baby Kendall & she is such a blessing.
Carole, Alan, & Little Man (Allan) were also here...it's amazing to see how Little Man has grown and changed just in the past month since I last saw him! He's getting so big and is at a point now where he is remembering us! He played with his "Didder" truck, which Aunt E FINALLY found. He was very excited to see his new Didder (GraveDigger truck). He loves the camera too, cause the baby is in there. (And it's one damn cute baby too!) He played with Jason and his trucks, while Alan made us fresh sushi (like he caught it just the day before). It.Was.Tasty! I must say he's a good cook! Carole helped me make cuppy cakes (and eat batter) & supervised as I made Mam-maw Yoder's Pumpkin Pie.
Our Aunt Pam & Uncle Rick got to come this year as well. It was great to see them and eat Aunt Pam's tasty cookies.
Over all we had a great, relaxing night enjoying each other's company. Heather, Mike & Kendall even got to spend the night this year, along with Carole, Alan, & Allan. So the next morning Carole & I made Mam-maw Yoder's Angel Biscuits & Sausage gravy for breakfast. It was very tasty!
For Christmas #2 we went to The Austin's in Mocksville for Christmas Eve. All of the family unfortunately couldn't come, but we had a very nice time anyway. The BBQ was awesome as usual and I ate too much. It was nice to spend time with everyone though.
Christmas #3 was at my Daddy's family up in Burke County! I grew up with the Christmas breakfast early at Mam-maw & Pap-paw's, and misses it for several years. The past few years, Jason & I have been lucky enough to join the family at my Aunt Sarah's where we got to see most of the family and eat a very tasty Christmas Breakfast like we used to have! The best part was that unlike at Mam-maw's it didn't start at 7 sharp ;)! It was great to visit with them and spend sometime watching the kids play and see how much they have grown. It started snowing when we left the house to go to Aunt Sarah's and we didn't think it would do much, but by the time we left, we almost got stuck there!
Christmas #4 was at the Bollinger Family (Jason's momma's family). It continued to snow the rest of the day and was so pretty. It was my first White Christmas EVER! Dusty, Kelly, Casey, Debbie, & Larry made a great dinner for the family. There were some new faces this year, but all were welcomed. For this Christmas, instead of getting everyone gifts, we decided to help out a family in need. Jackie & I had gone shopping for them a few weeks before while they were here in Raleigh. We had a good time shopping for the family and for the Dirty Santa gifts. Jason's grandmother Austin even got to join us again to spend Christmas day with us.
Jackie, Ted, Jason, Sally & I took a walk along the property just before dark and the trees were beautiful. Sally loves the snow, she pounces around and tries to catch snowballs. There might have been a small snowball fight between Jackie, Jason & I but it was so much fun!
This Christmas I got to see my Momma (Doris) & Popsye (Mike) along with Miss Isabella. Unfortunately I missed my Lyndsye & meeting Jeff, so I'll just have to take a long weekend to Baltimore ;). It was great to spend time with them and see Popsye doing so well & playing in the snow. :)
Jason & I exchanged gifts before we left for Hickory. Jason got me an awesome Keurig coffee maker that just makes 1 cup of coffee or tea for me! It also will make me Iced coffee or Iced tea :). Sally & Molly got me some new oven mitts, so I don't keep burning myself when I get things out of the oven. They are such good baby girls. I tried to be a great wife this year, so I got Jason a set of TaylorMade Burner Irons Plus. He's been wanting some new irons, and he'd commented about what irons he wanted, so I watched them and searched for the lowest price, then I was able to get them for him. He was very surprised and VERY excited. I got him some practice balls too, which we found out that Sally loves.
Jason was playing with them a bit before we left, so we closed the gates on the deck to keep Sally out of his way...yeah right. Our crazy dog, jumped about 8 feet down to the ground, face planted, then kept running to get the practice ball Jason had just hit.
It was a great Christmas! I am truly blessed with a great family!
