We began our Christmas celebration a little early this year. We didn't want to pack our gifts to each other, so we opened them the day before we left. We decided we would just spend $50 total this year on gifts to each other, so we only had a few gifts to exchange. But we had a good time anyway and its always nice to open presents, even there are only 2 to open!
We pulled out of our parking lot at 1:47pm on Wednesday (13 minutes ahead of schedule!) and arrived at my parents house on Thursday at 5pm. We stopped a total of 3 times the entire trip-once for gas on Wednesday PM, in Jackson, TN to sleep, and once on Thursday for lunch and gas! I packed dinner for Wednesday, got breakfast and gas before we got on the road on Thursday AM and made it to my parents house in time for dinner. We made great time and had a great time together along the way.
On Christmas Eve we started the day (well afternoon) with breakfast at Bob Evans with my parents, my brother and his family, and my two sisters. It was a great way to start the celebrations. We then made our way to Donald's parents house where we got ready for the Christmas Eve Candle Light Service. It was a great time of worship. Two of our nieces sang "Happy Birthday Jesus" with the Children's Choir, we had communion, and Donald did a "mini sermon" before we sang Silent Night and lite the candles. After the service we had dinner and exchanged gifts with Donald's brother and sister and their families.
On Christmas Day we woke up with Donald's parents and two of our nieces. We spent sometime with them and then we went to my parents to have Christmas and an early dinner. My mom fixed a non-traditional dinner this year- steaks! I am a big fan of "tradition" but this dinner was worth the change. (Hopefully it's the new tradition). After dinner we had to run my sister to the AmTrak station and we then went back to Donald's parents for a late dinner. (Yes, we did lots of running and lots of eating between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day!)
When we were at my parents house on Christmas Day it began to SNOW! And continued to snow for the next 24ish hours-blah! I say "blah" because I am not a huge fan of being cold or snow and it kinda altered some of our plans. Church ended up being cancelled on Sunday because of the snow. Donald was going to preach Sunday Morning, so we were kinda bummed for that. But we did get to keep our youngest nephew for the night which was lots of fun!
On Monday we went back to my parent's house were we spent a few hours there and got to see my grandparents who were heading back home to Florida from New Jersey. Monday evening/ Tuesday morning we got to spend with Donald's sister and our nephew. We had a great time with them going out to dinner and having cinnamon rolls for breakfast with them. Donald and Jared played and wrestled while Jackie and I chatted. We went back to my parents house to watch the Eagles game (Side note: We are Redskins fans, but my parents are Eagles fans- we did wear our new Redskins shirts though to show our support for "our boys"!) On Wednesday we spent the day visiting friends. I had lunch we with my best friend Sara and Donald had lunch with his brother. We then went to Donald's best friends house to visit with him, his wife and daughter. We then went to dinner with my parents, my brother and family, and one of my sisters (the other one is on an AmTrak, remember?!?!) We had a great time visiting with them and saying bye to my sweet, sweet niece! (Shww...I getting tired all over again just typing this out!)
On Thursday we loaded up the car again and headed to Lynchburg- our other "home"! We got to spend lots of times with our good friends and got to see some of our church family there. We spent a great deal of the time just relaxing, before heading for Texas again on Saturday. Before we left town we "visited" Liberty and our old apartment!
On Saturday, we did lots of driving and covered many, many miles! We just stopped twice on Saturday for gas both times and then we stopped around 10 just outside of Little Rock, AR for the night. We got up bright and early Sunday and we were on the road again by 6:20am. We pulled back into our parking lot at 11:30am on Sunday! We wanted to get home as early as we could since we didn't have an extra day before going back to work.
We had a great time and we are so thankful we were able to take some time off to spend Christmas with our families! Even though it was a little crazy and hectic at times, we wouldn't change the memories we made with each other and our families!
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