Christmas 2013 (Part 2)

After celebrating Christmas with my side of the family and as a nuclear family, we flew to Oklahoma to spend Christmas with my husband's family. This year we are happy to report that despite landing in snow and ice, we had no travel delays.  We have no exciting stories of being stranded at the airport on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and no wild adventures of traveling through treacherous road conditions at midnight in rental priced 3x higher simply because we were desperate.  We had smooth travels are are so grateful.

As soon as we arrived, my parents-in-love took us to a soul food restaurant where I was introduced to bizarre new certain menu items like the Wednesday special, neckbones.  This dive is extremely popular even though patrons must walk six doors down outside (in the snow this time) to use the restroom.

We often find snow and ice when we arrive at Grandma & Grandpa's house for Christmas.  Thankfully, they have a massive traditional fireplace burning real wood logs.  The first thing I notice whenever we come is all the new art work Grandma has created.  This year's addition was a Christmas tree comprised of tiny chronologically displayed photos of the family at Christmas over the past 15 years or so.  Candy and home made goodies always abound at her house.  Friends joked that the platter below must have been my plate.

I love all of Grandma's Christmas traditions.  One night she keeps the kids so the couples can all go out for a group date night.  She and the kids make gingerbread houses, while we go out to eat, usually for Mexican, and to the bowling alley.  My sister-in-law's name is Lindsey, but she also goes by Linds, so I chose "Linds'" bowling ball.  Bowling is not my sport, but the boys always enjoy some friendly competition among each other.

 The kids spent the next day decorating their gingerbread houses.  Our son enjoyed mixing the icing for the houses, but he opted for a Lego candy house instead of gingerbread for his Christmas candy house.

Another family tradition is baking and decorating a birthday cake for Jesus.  This cake has one red layer for the blood of Jesus, one green layer for new life in Christ, and white frosting for the purification from our sins.  The kids wrote Jesus name on the cake in sprinkles, but I'm not sure what language they were using. :-)

Scrabble and the big Christmas puzzle are annual Christmas amusements the entire family enjoy.
Christmas Eve begins with the reading of the Christmas story.  This year, my husband (the oldest son) read from a tablet instead of a printed Bible which reminded me again how much times have changed while traditions remain.   Grandma gives each family member a card with a note in it specifying that a donation has made in honor of Jesus, the true Christmas gift, to a charitable organization that would mean the most to each of us.  Christmas is all about giving after all.

She then hands each of us a personalized red glitter bag.  Inside each bag is a set of matching pajamas in our size.  We all don our Christmas Pjs and endure the yearly family photo shoot in our matching pajamas.  This tradition began long before I married into the family, so now my winter sleepwear drawer is filled with family Christmas pajamas.  I wear them all winter long.