To start off my Christmas gatherings this year I went to the Christmas Eve service at my church with Mom, Dad and Pamela. Mom tripped and fell while we were going in to take our seats, thankfully she didn't hurt herself to badly and we were all able to stay and watch the service. My church is loud, I forget how loud and silly it can be. So as Santa, Rudolf, a Christmas Tree and a Snowman danced around on the stage I couldn't help but laugh and wonder what in the world my family must think of the church I go to. I love Gold Creek, it's a great "little" church. It's kind of funny how large it is and yet I don't really feel like it is all that big at all.
Christmas morning Richard and I woke up, exchanged gifts and headed over to my parents house for our family gathering. It's always a chaotic mess over there, so many people in a small place and a gazillion presents. Or at least enough presents that we literally have to take a break in the middle of opening them. We had the traditional breakfast of sausage fondue and sticky buns, this is probably one of my absolutely favorite meals ever. I often wonder why we don't make this from time to time throughout the year. Then I worry if I did that I may not enjoy it quite as much when Christmas rolls around and decide to just stick with it being a Christmas tradition. With all the presents and breakfast and such we don't do a big dinner or anything, this year it was a spaghetti dinner for Christmas. I love my family, even with all the craziness I always have a good time. That being said, I always enjoy getting to spend some time with Richard and having a relaxing evening at home together when we finally head home.
The day after Christmas we headed over to Richards parents house for homemade pizza and a wonderful visit! Christmas with Richards family is always so much more relaxing then with mine. While I love my family dearly there is just no way to put that many people in a fairly small room and not have me feel a bit overwhelmed and exhausted. We stayed and visited and opened a few presents. It was nice having Christmas on the weekend this year, I will certainly miss having the extra days around it to relax a bit from all the gatherings.
On the third day of Christmas gatherings, also known as the Christmas get together at Dad (Gene's) house on New Years day. We all got together for some very yummy Italian food. He made his squash dots, homemade noodles, a creamy white alfredo type sauce and it was all very delicious indeed! Adam and Valerie were visiting so they got to come along as well. I played a few games of Skip-bo with Dani, JP and various other people. A good time was had by all!
Now for the pictures! I'm not putting in all that many as I have FAR to many pictures and I don't want to make them all smaller for my blog. So I'll pick out some of my favorite Christmas pictures for all to enjoy! I hope everyone else had a very Merry Christmas! We were very blessed this year, here is to another wonderful year~
Christmas #1
Homemade Almond Roca! Yummy!
Christmas #1.5
Chad is always the gift Santa, apparently he showed up early so he would get the job again this year even though he doesn't live there anymore.
It's a tiny little glass dragon I got for her at the science center... she screamed, it amused me.
And here are the pictures Richard took:
Cassandra found a dollar that had Dollar written on it, as you can see it amused her.
Dad got lots of Toy Story stuff, it's a miracle there were no duplicates. Here is the cute little car I got for him.
My wall decoration from Pamela, so pretty. :D
Christmas #2
There are no pictures. :( I'm not sure why but we very rarely take pictures at Richards parents house. I think we'll need to work on that.
Christmas #3
(Richard really likes cheese)
I love to see family Christmases, wish we could enjoy those sometimes. We miss being around family for the holidays, but thus is the life of the military =) Glad it all went well for you guys!
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