The Holidays

Christmas has always been one of my favorite holidays. With the lights, the treats, the presents and Christmas music starting well before Thanksgiving for me normally.  This Christmas was a little different.  Christopher and I have always been lucky to have the same viewpoint when it comes the holidays. It is about spending time with family and not about the presents.  We have always went very minimal when it comes to our personal presents and looked for that perfect gift for others. (I am a pretty savvy shopper if I do say so myself, so when it is time to buy a present I am usually the one who does it.)  We end up playing dirty Santa 4 times, presents for the little ones on my side, presents for everyone on his. It gets stressful! 

This year we decided to do the holidays differently.  Normally we bounce so much throughout Thanksgiving and Christmas that we don't get to visit everyone very long. This Thanksgiving we decided to volunteer for United Way's Community Thanksgiving Luncheon.  Susan asked if I would help with volunteer management so I knew I had to be there about 8 am and didn't know how long we would be there. (Christopher worked parking. Poor Thing.)  We decided we would attend the ones that we could make and really enjoy the day doing something we have always talked about doing.  It was an AMAZING day.  Over 1,400 plates served in about 4 hours!  It was such a blessing to me to be able to see so many people just joining in fellowship. I teared up several times after watching exchanges from volunteers, guests, and minglers.  I've always said I wanted to leave Gadsden one day, but I am truly thankful to live in a community that is so involved with everything.  About 2:30pm we rolled out.  I was exhausted! We headed back to get showers and see what was going on with the respective fams.  We decided to just go to my Grandaddy's which is down the road and see family that isn't in town all the time. 

I guess Thanksgiving gave us some "holiday cajones" :) so we decided to SKIP Christmas.  I really thought more of our family members would be upset when we said we wanted to take the only free days we had and take a vacation.  Well, off we were! We spent Christmas Eve-the 26th in a cabin in the woods and couldn't have asked for a better Christmas. No presents. No distractions.  Just a peaceful few days!

It was kind of sad to come home to the normal graze but at least we have a new year to look forward to. :) It wasn't too awful to come home to these faces, either!!