Early Christmas and New Traditions

We celebrated Christmas on Sunday with my mom's extended family. Tom and Toni hosted a huge group of 22 at their house. The only cousin who couldn't make it was Matt, as his trucking schedule didn't allow him to be home this year. He was in our thoughts though.

We spent a little time mingling and catching up, and eventually it was time to dig in to our gifts. Owen was so excited to open his presents, and he was happy to help Logan with his. Christmas is so much fun with a new generation of rugrats running around. Everyone had fun watching Owen's big smiles, and our polite boy even remembered to say "thank you" after opening each gift.

Later on we had a wonderful lasagna and pasta dinner followed by stockings. Family tradition: stockings are done after dinner. We had a great evening and best of all, everyone was more than happy to accomodate Chris' work schedule. My extended family has always been so kind about that and we're so thankful.

I usually organize a cousins name-draw but this year pitched a new idea: take the amount you would have spent on your cousin and throw it into a pot for a needy child. I figured I'd get a couple on board and made $100 my goal. I was totally wrong: every cousin participated and our pot grew enough to allow us to buy for three siblings (with a little left over to buy something for an adult sibling and their mother). I'm so happy to come from such a loving and generous family and we hope to make this our new Christmas tradition. Honestly, shopping for someone else's children has brought me as much joy as shopping for my own.