Friday, December 31, 2010

Christmas Celebration, Part Five

Ok, ok....I realize that I have posted several things in the same day, but with 2011 looming at our doors I needed to feel like I had put the holidays behind me. Hence, THREE posts in one day :) Thanks for hanging around and reading everything. 

Our fifth and final stop for Christmas 2010 was my paternal grandparents house for.....you guessed it.....more gift opening and another meal!  I'm so grateful that my family likes to give and eat! :)  We had a blessed time with all of our family during the holidays. I realized that I didn't get many pictures of myself during the holidays, but I'm the crazy picture taker lady now with my new camera and all :)








This family warms my heart :)







I hope those of you staying up late tonight to ring in the new year will be safe!  We will be tucked away in bed.  From our home to yours, Happy New Year :)

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Christmas Celebration, Part Four

Our next stop on Christmas Day was my father-in-law's house. Alan's stepmom, Candis, makes the most DELICIOUS homemade dumplings for Christmas and Thanksgiving--another one of my favorite meals!  This side of the family draws names for the adults, and we also do a "Naughty Santa" game each year.  Surprisingly, this year was a very mild game--not too much stealing going on that day.  In fact, one of the only stolen gifts was the one that I unwrapped, a Bass Pro gift card.  It was stolen by none other than the sweet, handsome face that I wake up to each morning. Geeesh! Men.








I own this......
:) Yippee!


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Christmas Celebration, Part Three

After visiting with extended family on Christmas Eve, my immediate maternal family returned to my parents for gift opening.  I love how much our little family is growing--Christmas was such a joy with the girls this year! We have learned to be more flexible with our family's traditional holiday plans to accomodate our growing family needs. This Christmas Eve schedule worked out really well, so I'm hoping we can adopt this as new tradition. It allow's each of our individual family's to spend Christmas morning at home without rushing around to be somewhere. Perfect, in my opinion! :)







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Thursday, December 30, 2010

Christmas Celebration, Part Two

Our next stop was at my moms' cousin's house for the Metcalf family meal. Each year we get together on Christmas Eve and partake in my most FAVORITE meal of the whole entire year!  Each person brings their signature side dish or appetizer--the main course is my Gram's brown beans :) Delish. 

This tradition started as a way for us all to share Christmas memories with my great-grandma, Granny. After our meal, we'd let her open gifts from everyone. She not-so-secretly despised this since it made her the center of attention.  Since she passed away in 2008, we still carry on the tradition of the family meal without our star of the show.  Our family seems to be cycling through to a younger generation.  Sadly, this side of the family has taken hit after hit during the last two years---with the loss of Granny, my Gramps, and my Uncle Ronnie.  Since my brother has gotten married, though, we have added three of the sweetest faces to our family tree. Each family deals with this cycle at some point or another, we're finally seeing it ourselves.

.....Anyhow, enough with the sad business. This is one of my most-looked-forward to family gathering's of the year! It was far from sad and tearful.














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Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Christmas Celebration, Part One

Ahhh, it feels so good to be sitting still after such a busy holiday weekend. It's 11am, and I'm still in my jammies :) Don't judge me, ha!  I decided to break our Christmas celebrations down into several posts. I took a TON of great pictures on my handy-dandy new camera, and I wanted to do each celebration justice.

Our first stop on Christmas Eve was my mother-in-law's house for the Wood family Christmas.  We opened up presents with his parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Santa was good to us this year! After all the hugs and "thank you's" were exchanged we sat down to enjoy a yummy meal together.

If I haven't already mentioned to y'all, I think I have the best "in-law" side of the family in the world!  Seriously, I almost despise using the word "in-law" to describe my relationship with them, I've always felt as if I was one of their own. Not only does this go to his mom's side of the family, but his dad's as well. I LOVE these people so much!










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