Our Christmases are always pretty crazy. My husband and I live in southeast Missouri, our oldest son lives in Florida, and our youngest son and his family live in Oklahoma. Most of my husband’s family live in southwest and central Missouri, and I have family in St. Louis and Indiana. Therefore, you can logically conclude that we spend a lot of time during the holidays traveling to see family, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Our first Christmas gathering was the weekend before Christmas Day with my husband’s family in southwest Missouri. We all gathered at my husband’s sister’s house just outside of Springfield. Words cannot express how thankful we are for her and her husband’s willingness to have us all over. We stuffed ourselves on all the wonderful food everyone brought and exchanged gifts. This year we decided to exchange WHITE ELEPHANT gifts instead of purchasing gifts, and, of course, we played the “stealing Santa” game thing. For those of you who don’t know what a white elephant gift is, it is an item you already have around the house that you either don’t want any more, never used, or simply just didn’t like/want (YES! Legal re-gifting!). There were some pretty interesting white elephants in the room that day along with much laughter!
Later the guys went downstairs to play some pool and watch the Mizzou basketball game. The ladies stayed upstairs, entertained Owen (the newest member of our family) with funny faces and “baby talk” (which I’m positive he understood every single word!), visited, and played Catch Phrase. Of course, we all went back to the kitchen and dining room numerous time to do some more munching on all that delicious food!
This last picture is my favorite picture of them all! (L to R: my husband, his sister, mom, and brother)
We really had a wonderful time that weekend, and we all truly missed those family members who couldn’t be there. Hopefully we will all be able to get together for a visit very soon.
NEXT: On to Round #2 of Christmas Chaos!