Friday, January 4, 2008

Home for the Holidays

I'm not picky. Home is what you make it, really. Which is why I was surprised to hear so many friends excited for us to be in our OWN house for Christmas this year. I didn't think it would feel any different. We were just glad not to be traveling by car or plane (or boat or train).

In past years, with Jared being in school, Christmas was the obvious vacation stretch where we could go and spend time with family, rotating between IL and AK and even UT more recently. We didn't mind celebrating Christmas elsewhere and actually looked forward to our reunions at the holidays. With that said however, and no offense to any family member anywhere....Now that we don't have two weeks vacation at Christmastime and family isn't exactly "close" (I'm sorry...but twelve to sixteen hours in a van through iffy mountain passes and weather does not constitute CLOSE in my book)....it was very, so very nice just to be in our own space for Christmas this year. Being in our new home was just an added bonus. (I still can't believe we pulled off a move 3 weeks before Christmas. I know others have moved a few days before Christmas, putting our three weeks prior to shame, but considering my "condition" and Jared was working full time during the entire transition...I think it's impressive for us. Even pictures were hung...our true mark of "moved in" & "settled").

My dad chastised me when he found out we sent the kids back to bed twice Christmas morning before getting up for good at 8am. But only because not all the kids were up at the same time and I'm not waking up a child in the morning unless it's absolutely necessary! We actually videotaped Christmas morning so we have no pictures to post for that. But here is a picture of the Portland area miracle that did happen...snow! We were totally stunned. Apparently the chances of getting snow on Christmas in our area is about 7% and if I recall, it's been more years than I've been alive (which is a lot) that they had it last on Christmas. Fun for our first Aloha Christmas memory.

1 comment:

Kim-the-girl said...

Sounds like lots of fun...I wish our Christmas away from family had been as enjoyable!