My 2018 Christmas was highly eventful. I am blessed beyond measure and I had the opportunity to celebrate Christmas numerous times this year. As always, December is probably the busiest month of the year for all of us. The blessing in Christmas touches us through the people we are allowed to surround ourselves with.
Please forgive how late I am posting this!! My Christmas celebrations lasted for almost the entire month of December. Figuring out how and what I wanted to write about was difficult. I could seriously write something that would take days to read. I cannot say enough about the amazing people who contributed to my Christmas celebrations journey this year. Gushy smushy lovey stuff. You know – I love you all!!
Fair warning….this is a long post with lots of pictures.
Roger’s Family Christmas
I kicked my Christmas celebrations off with a fantastic celebration with the Roger’s family. I can’t tell you how many people were there because I didn’t count. There were several people I hadn’t seen in a few months, a few that I hadn’t seen in decades, and some that I have never met. These are my family….not because of blood, but because of love. We played Dirty Santa and had a wonderful time eating, snacking, and catching up with family.
I tried to get a panoramic picture during out Dirty Santa game but it didn’t get everyone in the photo. I had such a wonderful time and I can’t wait for Christmas with them next year.
Christmas with the Office
Next, I had the opportunity to celebrate Christmas at Top Golf with my work family. We exchanged gifts and spent several hours enjoying the fellowship of everyone together over food and fun. I’ve never been to Top Golf and haven’t played golf in over 25 years because I am absolutely terrible at it, so I was relatively skeptical about how the night was going to go. I was given instructions by 2 individuals and apparently my adult brain understands the game better than my teenage brain did because I was finally able to swing and hit the ball! It’s the small victories that make me happy!! This is totally the way to play golf, repeatedly hitting a ball without ever having to walk around searching for the tiny little thing. We all had a blast!
Christmas with Dad and Joyce
Next, we had Christmas with my dad & stepmom, Joyce. In order to reduce the amount of stress, we decided to have dinner at Texas Roadhouse and exchange gifts. I love spending time with my family and getting the opportunity to talk about anything and everything over a great meal. We laughed, exchanged presents, and sat at the table enjoying family.
After dinner, dad and Joyce went home and the rest of us went to the mall to shop for a few items. Caiden and I decided it was more fun to play with the Fortnite stuff than it was to shop!!
Raibourn Family Christmas
Christmas with the Raibourn family was awesome, as always. We had some excellent food and then exchanged presents. After everything was cleaned up, we got around the coffee table and played a game. Amanda brought a couple of gifts that were wrapped quite well, dice, and 2 oven mitts. The person wearing the oven mitts has to unwrap the gift but they only have the amount of time it takes for the next person to roll a 3 (or any combination of numbers that you choose). Once that roll happens, the oven mitts are transferred to next person and they try to unwrap the present until the next person rolls a 3. This continues around the table until finally someone gets into the gift and that person is the winner – and they get to keep the gift. It’s a fast paced game that is hilarious. Once we finished that, we decided to play Would You Rather. We didn’t follow the exact game rules. Instead, we all got 10 cards and sat around in a circle, taking turns reading our cards and answering what we would rather do. We all started chiming in and the laughter got louder and louder. Another successful and fun Christmas!!
Christmas at Tredy’s
The other side of Kym’s family gets together before Christmas and it’s always a blast. Tons of food and lots of family. This year we had white chili, a huge outdoor pot of traditional chili, deer sausage, chicken spaghetti, chips, dips, and lots of desserts. We had a mean Cornhole tournament going. Before you ask…………we lost. Ugh. We drew names and did a gift exchange. There was also a bonfire and the kids were having a blast running around playing with their gifts. We sat around and talked, played games, ate a huge spread of food, and watched the kids play.
This is certainly a family that loves to be together. I love how close everyone is and I always have an amazing time when we get together. The food is always phenomenal but the time spent with family is the best part.
Christmas with my family
We decided to have a no stress Christmas. After several suggestions, we decided on Build-Your-Own-Sub-Sandwiches with the options of….ham, turkey, pepperoni, salami, 4 different kinds of sliced cheese, lettuce, tomato, red onion, pickles, avocado slices, black olives, jalapenos, and banana peppers. Traci also brought some super yummy stuff from Bear Creek Smokehouse – peppered pork tenderloin, chili cheese bacon dip, and harvest vegetable dip. She also brought sweet & hot jalepenos, cranberry relish, and jalapeno pepper jelly that she spread over cream cheese. As if all that wasn’t enough, we also had rotel cheese dip, chips, pickled yellow squash, sausage balls, potato soup, and cookies.
One of the reasons we planned stress-free food was so we could spend more time opening gifts, talking, and playing games. We would rather play and laugh instead of wasting time cooking and cleaning. The game this year was Hearing Things and it was hysterical. Traci and mom warned us to use the restroom before we started playing – obviously they knew the chance of laughing to the point of peeing was HIGH. And they were right. I have not laughed sooooo hard in a really long time. I was sitting on the floor and I was thankful for my choice of seating because I literally fell over laughing numerous times. I was laughing a face wrinkling, eyes disappearing, ugly teeth and gums showing, tears falling, laying on the ground, I can’t breathe, and I don’t know why I even wore mascara kind of laughter.
Family means the world to me. I haven’t told you about any gifts exchanged (other than LCR) because the season and celebration has nothing to do with gifts…..it is about the memories you can make with your family. I cherish the laughter and conversations with family. I urge you to soak up as much time with those that you love because in the future, those memories may be all that you have….or it might be the only thing your loved ones have of you.
This journey in life isn’t about what we can possess. Don’t wait for the holidays to spend time with the people you love.
