Monday, December 26, 2011

Christmas 2011

This holiday season hasn’t been easy for me. I struggled to get the tree up, and while it was beautiful and I loved it, it still didn’t feel like Christmas yet.

I kept waiting for it to start feeling like Christmas. Saturday am, Christmas Eve, I got up and went for a run. I went 4.5ish miles with a friend, then finished up 7.5  miles on my own.

12 miles = very sleepy afternoon. I sat around with Austin watching tv and waiting for A Christmas Story to come on.

The true is, I was waiting for the evening. Christmas Eve is probably my favorite part of Christmas. It is full of tradition and family.

Saturday night we went to church for service. The service was great but the end is the best. Everyone lights a candle and we all sing silent night. **insert chills here**

I ran home and made a breakfast casserole while mom and dad finished up at the 2nd service at church.

IMG_1274

Then my 2nd favorite part of Christmas eve began. The Waffle House.

IMG_20111224_205617IMG_20111224_205624

This tradition has been going on for 16 years. It started in GA, where we would spend a good few hours opening up gifts then our adopted grandparents (all the grandparents lived in MD ) would come over and we would go to WH for breakfast.

When we moved to MD, we would open gifts and then head to my grandparents house so there wasn’t time for a WH stop, so we started going after church on Christmas eve. Along the years others have joined us in our tradition. The past few years our music minister at church, Chip, and his wife, Marcie have joined us.

The time is full of food, fun and laughs. Always guaranteed to laugh, a lot.

IMG_20111224_220430

This year, since Christmas was on Sunday we decided we would open all of our family presents on Christmas eve. So we came home and exchanged gifts.

IMG_20111224_232651

Dad handing out presents.

IMG_1275IMG_1277IMG_1279

I got a lot of running related gifts Open-mouthed smile. A cute new bag and my brother gave me new perfume. Then we went to bed for the big day.

IMG_20111224_235818

My mom got a trip to go drive a racecar from my dad. Her reaction was HILARIOUS!! Hoping I can get the video edited and up here soon.

On Friday night, Austin and I made some homemade eggnog, it was pretty good, even Kobi liked it.

IMG_20111224_232723IMG_20111224_232738IMG_20111224_232743

Sunday am, we  got up and had blueberry french toast casserole and then headed to church.

After church we went to Rockville to do the rounds at my grandparents house .

Christmas at my mom’s parents house first with lots of yummy cookies and carrot cake. IMG_1281IMG_1282IMG_1284IMG_1289

Then over to my dad’s parent’s house for dinner and then more presents. This time is probably the most funny part of all of Christmas. It seems that there is always jokes being cracked, typically because my granddaddy got yet ANOTHER damn shirt.

IMG_1297

Also, my uncle Mickey is just hilarious and gets some pretty great presents.

Like this year, my brother the DIE HARD Steelers fan got this shirt.

IMG_1303IMG_1304

to pour salt into the wound, he got 2! Because my uncle bought one in orange first, then realized it was the wrong color and got it in yellow too. It was hilarious!

What was even more funny, was everyone else got Jesus Loves [Insert their team]

IMG_1305

I got the complete Harry Potter series! Which is what I plan to do today! IMG_20111225_201749

We came home and all of the neighborhood kids that are Austin's age came over for a little party. So fun, but man I felt old. I used to babysit most of them!

It ended up being a great Christmas! Even if it didn’t feel like Christmas until the very end!  Looking forward to the last week of 2011 but even more to 2012!

3 comments:

  1. Love the pics! I'm glad you had a wonderful Christmas. Love the pressies!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Waffle House, you are SOOOOOOO lucky. It has been 20 years since we've been to one and we can still remember it like it was yesterday. LUCKY!!!!
    I love that you are joining me on my running challenge. I am positive you will be there before June with the miles you put in. Angela, thank you for getting me started!!
    Take care and have a blessed day!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ohhhhh I love your new Coach bag! :D Sounds like you had a great Christmas after all, and I'm totally jealous about the waffle house, we don't have anything like that around here!

    ReplyDelete