What Christmas Means to Me

I can't believe that another Christmas has come and gone.  I also can't believe that I'm testing out whether blogging on my  new blackberry playbook is possible.  It's kind of painful.  Moving on.  We had a lot of Christmases to go to but we are lucky that they all work out and we don't have to rush from one to another.

We started out at Ryan's parent's house on Christmas Eve.  It's just the six of us and Willis, which is nice.  We went on our traditional walk, took our family photo, watched Garfield Christmas and of course ate and exchanged gifts.



Very serious

Of course we took a family pic in front of the tree on Christmas Eve!  I was so excited that I woke up multiple times throughout the night.  We finally got out of bed at 6:30.  

Pipsi loved Christmas.  She thought all of the activity was pretty fun.  She got lots of toys and treats too, so that's never a bad thing.

We opened gifts from each other and then headed down to my parents house.  My brother and sister still live at home so we still do a full Christmas there.  My mom got my brother and I these awesome shirts.  Mine says Keep Calm and Ginger On and my brother's says I Got 99 problems but a soul ain't one.  Ginger humour.

We alternate Christmas Day and Boxing Day between my mom and dad's families.  This year Christmas Day was at my mom's mom's house.  (That seems grammatically incorrect...)  It was also this little guy's first Christmas!  He was born on December 21 so I'm pretty sure he didn't get much out of the occasion!

Because the other side of the family was meeting up on boxing day, we went up to the cottage.  We do this every other year.  We also actually had the entire family up there!  It's not very often that there isn't anybody missing. 



Grandchildren (and great-grandchildren) pic!

For the first year we did the Secret Santa present stealing game.  It worked out pretty well and I think that everybody had a good time doing it.  This family is getting pretty big.  A few of us are married, a few have kids, and it's getting difficult to get us all together.  So we have to enjoy these Christmases while we can.

Oliver liked when Grandpa stood up and he snatched his chair.  What a guy. 

This Christmas made me wish I was in University again.  Those university kids get like two weeks off!  I had to go back to work yesterday.  Let me tell you, getting out of bed was not fun.  It didn't help that we had a snow storm and the roads were awful. 

I really thought about how blessed I was this Christmas.  I sometimes forget that some people don't have 3 days worth of family Christmas to attend, and that I should be thankful for that.  Another one bites the dust.  See you next year Christmas!

P.S.  The playbook didn't last this time around...I will have to keep practicing.