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.