Football, Games and Family

Jason has these insanely large families. I'm sure others have larger, but both his mom and dad's families actually get most everyone together for a day each Christmas. In spite of the chaos, it does make for a lot of fun.

I have far fewer people in my entire family (21 family members and that includes my family of six, aunts, uncles, cousins and my cousin's children and spouses!) than Jason has at just one of these family events. One of Jason's two big families was able to play a game where we tried to guess whose baby picture belonged to who -- it was actually really hard considering how many people were in on the game. His other family had a football game -- if we take the babies out of my family, we don't even have enough people for a good night of Bunco! Still I did have a wonderful time with my aunt and uncle playing relaxing games of backgammon at Creekside. It doesn't have to be bigger to be better.

Candy Store

Jason's great aunt and uncle orchestrate a wonderful Christmas tradition that includes oodles of candy -- so of course it is a hit with the kids. They have the Belew Candy Store and dole out candy to kids already hyped up on Christmas excitement. Jason grew up with the candy store tradition so it is all the more special that they continue on with it every year. I really enjoy them and unfortunately candy store time is not the time for much conversation so we really need to get up there again for a real visit.

Pic from the Past

This is what bored housewives who think they are cleaver do to their children...

Christmas 2004
Kyle (as Santa)

Dylan (as the Reindeer)

Man...Santa was not happy with his reindeer that day!

Christmas 2007

Happy to say that Advent is coming to a close and we are actually heading off on our pilgrimage to start family visits, Christmas celebrations and a trip to Colorado -- Jonathan plans to snowboard for the first time -- pray for me as he will probably be fine. I do wonder how frustrating it will be to start over learning a new mountain skill -- he had been oh so cool skiing those blues with dad. I think Jason is going to miss his skiing partner, too.

But we have some celebrating to do before we hit the snow. First we will trek around Texas and meet and great and eat. There should be some down days between events and best of all no work for Jason! I do get spoiled this time of year when he is with us 24/7.

Lots to do, but lots of fun to have!

I hope you enjoy the season and time with family and friends!

Then and Now

Christmas 2006

Christmas 2007

I think the only thing to change in these two pictures is the year. Poor Lyvi -- maybe next year.

Emailing Santa

Well, this will be the first year that Jonathan and Lindsay don't see Santa. For one, they aren't going to be around when Santa arrives at the park across the street and for two, I really like them keeping their Santa visions in their head. Lindsay could probably enjoy one more year, but she can conjure fabulous visions all her own. We might read the Autobiography of Santa Claus, which even I thought was well written considering the subject matter.

We do email Santa since I have found a site I LOVE (keep the volume on when you click send!)
http://www.emailsanta.com/email_santa.asp

Santa emails you right back and does a fun job of including information from the comments section. Lindsay asked if her brothers and sister were on the nice list and in the big guy's reply he said to say "hi" to her brothers and sisters and something clever including the "Naughty and Nice" list.

Lyvi and Dylan will have the Santa lap option this weekend, but I'm guessing they would forgo gifts if requests had to be made in person!