It’s hard to believe that we have only been on Christmas break mode for 10 days…it feels like a lot has happened in those 10 days! For my own memories sake, I’m just going to recap what we’ve been up to!
Thursday we finished up school with class Christmas parties and headed home straight out of school. It was WILD leaving school at 3pm (I’m usually there until 4:30 or 5 haha!). We were home for a few hours, then went to the library for Harry Potter night. They went all out with some really cool stations and a scavenger hunt to find different HP characters. The kids loved it!
We left the library and surprised the kids with dinner out at our local pizza place. I finally booked the igloo and we got to eat in that! It was fun…but it was a one time experience. Now we can say we’ve done it, and I don’t think any of us have the desire to do it again. Also. HOLY STICKER SHOCK. We don’t eat out much as a family, and this was a regular ‘ol local pizza place – we aren’t talking anything fancy here. Our bill (including the $20 reservation of the igloo) was almost $100. WHAT. WHAT. WHAT.
The next few days were mostly cozy days at home. I find that once we hit break, we need like 2-3 days of regulation before we can even function as a normal family. There is a lot of whining, crying, complaining, fighting, and general discontentment before we kind of return to center. And I’m not just talking about the kids here hahahaha. I worked on getting some house chores done and staying caught up on laundry. Two of the kids still had sports practice, and we had one basketball game to get to. Theo drove past a wood cutting company clearing a nearby property and asked if they wanted to drop off all their wood…so we got three dump truck loads of logs dumped right in our driveway. So, just in case you didn’t know where we live, you can now find us by looking for the most redneck looking property in all of SE Ohio. Haha!
On Saturday, my aunt and two cousins + a husband drove up from Kentucky for a visit. I saw one of my cousins at my Grandma’s funeral back in May, but I haven’t seen my other cousins in years. It was fun to reconnect and kind of circle around to having lots in common as adults.
Sunday evening, my brother and sister in law arrived from WI for Christmas! From here on out, our days were packed and full to the brim with family, fun and festivities!
Monday morning I ran a bunch of errands- I went to the butcher to pick up our sheep meat, I dropped off eggs and meat at some friends homes, and then I headed over to my parents house to hang out with my parents + brother + family. When Theo got off work, he came over and we had a delicious dinner and then loaded up and went to watch a Christmas light show- the kind where you stay in your car and listen to the music that matches up with the lights. It’s my favorite light show and this year did not disappoint!
Tuesday we were up early, and I scrambled to get everything we needed for the whole day loaded into the van. We met my family at 5 Below to buy gifts for our annual cousin gift exchange. Everyone picks a person and then we scatter through the store and pick something for that person. It’s a blast!
Back at house, we played games, colored a giant coloring page, snacked, hung out, and then opened our gift exchange presents!
We got dressed up and headed over to my parents church for a candlelight service. Then back to the house for our traditional Christmas Eve appetizer dinner. My Mom, Tera, and I loaded up all kinds of different appetizers and we ate like royalty!
After dinner, we all gathered around to watch our annual family slide show. My Dad collects pictures from throughout the year and puts them together into a slideshow. We have so much fun looking through pictures and hearing stories from each others families.
Every night, we got back to our house late and basically just crashed. We woke up Christmas morning with a little time to go slow and just kind of put things back together again. I wrote about our choice to not do presents as a family this year, so Christmas morning was a little more quiet than we are used to. We did do a little devotional and lit our advent candles, then I worked on cinnamon rolls while the kids played a game. Then we headed back over to my parents house for the day- with lots of food in tow again!
We opened our presents from my parents. We did a lot of game playing, the kids apparently all did makeup on Tera and my Mom haha. Then Theo, my Dad, and I went for a run. Later, we went for a hike. And around 3pm we ate our main meal of the day- a pork roast with all kinds of delicious sides!
After a late afternoon movie and more game playing, we called it a night and said our goodbyes to family. We got home around 7:30 and everyone went straight to bed. Haha. We were so partied out! Three full days of family, cousins, food, fun and late nights will do that to you!
Of course, we now have some kind of post-Christmas crud, as I’m sure most people do lol. It’s nowhere near as bad as in years past and I think we all just need a couple days to laze around on the couch, anyways, so I’m not too mad about it at this point.
It was a wonderful Christmas week! I am so thankful that Theo was off work for Christmas this year, and that we were able to get together with my brother and his wife and kids!! I’ve spent many a Christmas literally alone, so to have such a full and abundant week is such a huge blessing.
Now, I’m ready for the New Year energy! Here we come, 2025!