Christmas seemed to arrive far faster this year than any year before it, but it was wonderful nonetheless. Unfortunately, Heath was sick for Christmas so he wasn’t able to attend any of the festivities with me, but he’s getting better now and I brought Christmas back to him in the form of food, gifts, and pictures of what he missed.

Christmas Eve went something like this:

My dad’s side of the family came over for dinner at my parent’s house. We had two different kinds of lasagna’s (one regular completely made from scratch, the other seafood), two different kinds of salad, and fresh yummy bread. There were an assortment of appetizers as well, but I arrived after they were served. I missed out on a seafood chowder, smoked salmon, and crab dip.

After dinner we all opened gifts, but since all of the kids are no longer “kids” gift swapping is a pretty short event these days. It was full of laughs though because my dad got all of his brothers and parents “puzzle” like gifts that had everyone scratching their brains and received some interesting items himself like: chocolate covered bacon (I know, sounds gross, but is actually surprisingly yummy) and a DVD with a fire playing so you can pretend to have a fire roaring (which is a bit strange for my dad since my parents actually have a fireplace). My sister and I got 15 of our dad’s old world blown glass ornaments and one additional new one so we can start our own tree like his, which was exciting (for me at least because I am in love with his tree). Since Rachel wouldn’t be there on Christmas Day, Dad had us search for the pickle gift on Christmas Eve which felt odd, but I won! Maybe the fact that it was a different day threw Rachel off since she wins almost every Christmas. (There will be more about the pickle gift tradition in my next post where I showcase my gifts.)

After gifts we had dessert and several of them to choose from: Cheesecake, Holiday Spice Cake (aka Prune Cake), and Plum Pudding (which was supposed to be lit on fire after dousing it in Brandy, but it didn’t exactly work out that way). With an officially fat belly, I headed home to get some sleep and get ready for an even longer day on Christmas.

Christmas Day began at 8am:

I got to my parents and we shared presents. Dad got an Xbox 360, with 4 games, Xbox live, Xbox points, and a headset. He was, as always, a large child. Mom got a Nook and was super excited, along with some other cool items like UGGS and perfume. My big gift was… BOOKS! Mom & Dad got me 17 books alone and that wasn’t all of the books I received this Christmas (I will tell you more about that in my next post!).

After exchanging gifts we headed over to my grandmothers (Mom’s side of the family) for breakfast. This breakfast is something we almost demand every Christmas. It is by far, hands down, the best breakfast in the world. I look forward to it all year. My grandparents are from the south and they cook breakfast the way it’s meant to be cooked: fattening and delicious. Our plates were full with biscuits and gravy, eggs, fresh made cinnamon apples, hash browns, bacon, and sausage. It was phenomenal! It’s the kind of breakfast you get mad at your stomach for being full over because you always want seconds, but there’s never any room.

We traded gifts there as well, but for the most part everyone basically traded money with each other – lol. Maw Maw & Paw Paw did make homemade candies for us as well as chocolate covered pretzels, fudge, and peanut butter pinwheels (these being my favorite!). I’m knee deep in sugar right now 🙂

By the time I got home I needed a nap, but it was short lived because Heath was feeling better enough to run to his parents for a little bit since they live semi far away in comparison to my parents and there was all this talk of snow (which still hasn’t amounted to much a day later). We didn’t stay long because as the night wore on Heath felt less and less “okay,” but everyone loved their gifts and it was good to see all the family actually on Christmas.

I spent the remainder of my night last night staring at my awesome gifts and taking pictures of them for my next post entitled, “Christmas Loot” which is really just short for “Check out my books and drool with me!”

I hope everyone had as amazing of a Christmas as I did and I’d love to see pictures of your festivities so please post if you’ve got them! Even if you don’t have pictures though, stories about your holiday would be wonderful too 🙂

I wish Christmas wasn’t over, I miss it already.

Peace – Sarah

—————-

To see the complete Christmas Eve Album click HERE

To see the complete Christmas Day Album click HERE

—————-