Family Celebrations

I promise this is my last Christmas post.  But I had to get in something about our extended family celebrations.  

On Christmas day, we went to my aunt and uncle's mill for my dad's family Christmas.  We had only seen this entire family 4 times in the past 2 weeks and we weren't sick of them yet.

It started out with some skating.  I went outside, but I didn't skate.  Funny since I used to be a figure skater.  But I just don't like winter enough.  I figured by the time I got my skates on I would be ready to go inside.  (I don't know why it's snowing in my picture, but it's kind of neat.)

 The rest of the day was spent doing what this family does best.  

Playing games.

 Eating.

And playing music.

 And then there's this kid.  He melts my heart.

 I asked these two to climb up on a chair so I could take their picture, and since they are 2 and a half, they listened, because at that age they still do what you tell them to do.

That's Jamie's cheese face.  Every single time, he has one eye closed.  It cracks me up.

 Boxing day we went to my Grandma's house, or my mom's mom's house.  The family is slightly smaller so it's much quieter.  We had a delicious catered meal, which was nice because nobody had to do any work.

 Then we opened presents.  This little guy was 4 days old last Christmas.  It's crazy what a change a year can make.

 And just like that Christmas was over.  

Christmas Morning

Once again, we had a fantastic Christmas morning at the Osbott house!  This year, Ryan and I were super lame and bought a dishwasher instead of doing Christmas gifts.  So instead, we just did stockings.

Ryan's favourite gift - 4 boxes of smarties

Eager for her new toys

I must say, for a husband, Ryan did a great job!  Sure, I gave him ideas, but he executed them!  

Pipsi loved the paper as well and also enjoyed getting some new toys to play with.

When we were done, we drove down to my parents for more present opening.  I'm just going to show you the pictures, because my family is slightly insane.

Zoomies - so cool

My brother's Hogwart's acceptance letter

My mom has this cutting board that she hates the feel of because it's too rough - so my dad oiled it

Ryan and his best friend - or not

New suspenders, looks good with the pjs

My dad got this note writing board for Christmas - and used it all morning

Is my main gift used? It has dirt on it!

Nope your main gift is actually a new bike

Baby When The Lights Go Out

This year, for the first time, we had a no electricity Christmas.  Unfortunately it wasn't exactly by choice.  

When the ice storm hit last Sunday, my in laws lost power, and they didn't get it back until Friday afternoon.  However, my mother-in-law still really wanted to have Christmas at their place.  So, we just had a few modifications.  

There was a suggestion that we have no stuffing, but that's just ridiculous.  So I made stuffing in my slow cooker.  The rest of the meal was prepared on their wood stove.

We also had to do presents earlier than usual and upstairs where there was more light.  But we still had a really nice day.  The candles just added character.

It's weird when you have no power, we thought it was so late and it was only 7, but the house was so dark and quiet.  Until the generator kicked in that is.  

By Friday they were definitely ready to have their power back, however on Christmas Eve we still made the best of the situation and had a great Christmas together! 

The 12th Day of Christmas

Due to the Ontario Ice Storm, we didn't have internet until late Christmas Eve.  Well by then my Christmas activities were in full swing, and blogging didn't really seem to matter.  

For the 12th Day of Christmas, I just want to say that I hope everyone had an amazing Christmas an spent some quality time with your family.  I know I did, and we aren't done yet!  We are leaving for another Christmas event in about 2 minutes!

Merry Christmas from my family to yours!

Our family pic from last year, since this year's pictures have yet to be looked at!

 

The 11th Day of Christmas: A Non-Parade Party

The last Sunday before Christmas is supposed to be our town's Santa Clause parade.  Because our house is right on the parade route, everyone comes over to watch the parade followed by a party.  However, for the first time ever, due to the ice storm, the parade was cancelled.  Sad face.

 

We decided to still have some people over as I had baked cookies and made chili and I didn't want to eat it all myself.

 Oh and we wear Christmas sweaters.  And no I don't have a picture of me in my awesome  t-shirt and turtleneck.

 

 We didn't have any power for about 4 hours of the party, but that was fine. 

Here is my dad's float, that him, my uncle and Ryan spent all day Saturday working on.  And now nobody will ever see it.  Except for all of you.

Oh well, there's always next year.

The 10th Day of Christmas: The day the power went out

On the 10th day of Christmas we had an ice storm.

The 10th day was actually yesterday.  We were actually better off than a lot of people, but we still lost power for about 5 hours.  The Santa Clause parade was cancelled, but we had a party anyways.

And this morning, Internet was still down, which is why I unfortunately cannot share pictures of the crazy ice covered trees and a group of people heating up my house with body heat.

This picture however did come out of the storm.  It's in Kingston, which is about 4 hours from us.  Our streets weren't actually this icy, but it's still pretty funny!

{via}

The 9th Day of Christmas: Traditional Christmas Day

We are getting pretty close to Christmas because I'm actually posting about Christmas day today!  The most magical day of the year!  

Last year Ryan woke me up bright and early and said "It's Christmas, get up!" and I had to tell him to go back to sleep.  We don't even have any kids, so I can't imagine what it would be like if we did!  I have a feeling that this house will be the opposite of my house growing up where every Christmas we had to wait for my dad to get ready, and comb his hair (the only day of the year he does that), and make the coffee....

So now that I'm married, Christmas morning has changed a little bit of course.  Ryan and I get up, make some coffee and open our presents.  

Once we are done, we head down to my parents house.  They live about a 30 second drive from us, so we just stay in our pajamas.  My brother and sister both still live at home, so they just open their stockings before we get there and then we join them for the rest of the gifts.  I may have said it before, but my mom is a little out of hand with Christmas.  Most people probably think it's ridiculous.  The gift opening takes awhile because we all try to soak it in.  

Oliver's First Christmas

My family also still has Christmas with all my cousins and aunts and uncles.  We alternate between families for Christmas and Boxing Day.  So this year, my dad's family is getting together on Christmas Day.  Every other year, when we are with them for Boxing Day, the whole fam jam goes up to the cottage.  We love cottage Christmas!  This year Christmas is out at my Aunt and Uncle's Mill for the first time.  The Mill is very cozy in the winter, so I'm looking forward to it.

Cottage Christmas

Boxing Day this year, we go to my other Grandma's house.  Her house is like home for all of us, and we are all so comfortable there.   

And then it's over.  And we are all so sad.  As a kid, you are so focused on the gifts.  Now it's about so much more than that.  It's the whole feeling of Christmas that I love.  My mom was always obsessed with Christmas, and I'm starting to understand why.  I don't know whether it's because it's the one time of year where even as an adult you feel the magic?  There are so many people in the world for whom Christmas may not be a happy time.  So I feel so very fortunate to have the life I have and my family surrounding me this time of year.

The 8th Day of Christmas: Traditional Christmas Eve

Our Christmas Eve celebrations actually begin on December 23rd typically.  Since Ryan and I have been together, we have done his family Christmas on Christmas Eve.  This actually works out really well because every Christmas we have is on a different day, which means only 1 turkey dinner each day and we really get to enjoy the family that we are spending time with that day, without having to worry about heading to a different house.

So back to December 23rd.  My church holds a Christmas Eve service on that day (as well as 3 on Christmas eve), so generally we try to make it to that service.  This church service is a production.  With lots of music and performances, a bit of a sermon and it ends with some carolling.  As this is obviously the reason for the season, this service is very important to me and I would never miss my Christmas Eve service!

Then Christmas Eve we head over to Ryan's parents house some time in the afternoon.  It's just the 6 of us there (plus one German Shepherd and one cat who hates the German Shepherd).  We try to get out for a family walk.  We eat a nice dinner.  We open our gifts.  And the most important tradition of all, we watch Garfield Christmas and we laugh.  Garfield never gets old!

When making snow angels, watch out for mitten grabbing dogs

I have been a part of this family for almost 5 years now, but it kind of feels like I have been doing this forever.  Compared to the next two days of Christmas, this day is just calm and relaxing.  Not that I would trade in the madness that is the remainder of my family Christmas', but it's nice to have a bit of both.

Oh but then we usually join in on the madness anyways.  My family all gets together on Christmas Eve, as they have done every year since I was little.  We usually head to that party for about an hour or so before we go home and wait for Santa. 

The 7th Day of Christmas: Things My Mom Told Me

I was a very inquisitive child.  I think that this may have challenged my mother a little bit as she needed an answer for everything. 

I was just thinking about this time when I wanted a new game for a children's video game system that I had.  We went to the store and I was told by the employee there that they didn't have any and only Santa could get those games.  My mom doesn't remember this, so I'm not sure whether I was wanting to buy the game myself and she was getting it for me for Christmas, but clearly she had a discussion with this employee to deter me from wanting the game.  But it wasn't til recently that I thought about this again and realized that this was kind of strange.  

My mom always wrapped my Santa presents in a different paper then the presents from her and my dad.  One year (when I was still quite young) she wrapped them in the same paper.  I caught onto that.  I also had talked with my friends and realized that Santa didn't wrap everyone else's presents.  So she told me that Santa doesn't have time to wrap and after Santa had delivered the presents she had to go downstairs and wrap them all.

These things kept me believing in Santa for a long time.  Part of that was because I was the oldest child, I think that this kind of extends your childhood a bit because you don't have any older siblings who know what is actually going on.  But I love that I was able to believe in magic for so long.

Then Harry Potter came along and I started believing in magic again....

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