Home for the Holidays

I love Christmas, and I love getting to be home for Christmas! Putting up the Christmas tree, playing Christmas music, seeing Christmas lights everywhere, and baking Christmas cookies are some of my favorite sights, sounds, and smells of the season that I don't think I could live without! But one of the very best things about Christmas, especially after being away from home for a semester, is getting to spend lots of time with family and friends! The house pictured here is just down the street from my own house. Every year they cover their house and front yard with Christmas lights and decorations and they put on a light show with the lights coordinated to Christmas music that passersby can tune their stations to as they drive by! It is a popular sight to visit in my hometown during the Christmas season!

Every year, for ten years now, my friend, Kate, from high school has been hosting an annual Christmas party! At first, in middle school, it was just the girls. But then, once we discovered boys, it became co-ed. Now, I am so glad that we continue the tradition because it is the best way to get ALL of our high school friends together again! I do still see a lot of my hometown friends, and I have been able to spend a lot of time with them all this break. But we are all so busy and have such very different schedules that it is hard to get everyone together often. Some of my friends are working full-time, some are taking college classes still, and one of my friends is even engaged and getting married Labor Day weekend this year!!! (I am still adjusting to this getting older thing!) But for this year's Christmas party most of us all had a great time playing board games and eating all of our favorite junk food snacks! Especially, Kate's famous calzone and my brownies - favorites since high school!

My friend Brandon (aka "Dobes" - my friends have a lot of nicknames!) and I at Kate's Christmas party.

My friends and I also celebrated together on New Year's Eve at my friend Brennan's house. Here I am with girlfriends Tessa and Kate.

Then, when Christmas rolled around, I celebrated with not one, but FOUR Christmases! My immediate family and I celebrated Christmas Eve with some of my dad's side of the family with dinner at our house. Then on Christmas Day, after opening presents from Santa of course, we went to my gramma's house to celebrate with my mom's side of the family. But now that I have had cousins who have gotten married, and we don't get to see my mom's cousins often, we always hold more Christmas gatherings so we get to see all of the family who we didn't get to see on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day! I always enjoy these parties because they are more casual than Christmas and we get to play with new Christmas presents!

My family at our house on Christmas Eve.

My sister, Lindsay, and cousins Liz and Emily at my gramma's house on Christmas Day.

The day after Christmas, all the siblings and cousins on my dad's side got together over my aunt's house. It was exciting because we got to see Cameron, my cousin's 7 month old baby, and the newest addition to our family! We ordered Chinese food and did a Yankee Swap (re-gifting encouraged!) I ended up with a great number, and the gift I received was a bottle of wine! We also played Telestrations, a game that my sister received for Christmas from my aunt. It is basically telephone but with pictures.

Cameron is an excellent gift-unwrapper! And of course his puppy, Simon, wanted to help!

Playing Telestrations!

Then just this past weekend, we finally had our fourth Christmas, which had been postponed because of last weekend's snowstorm. We went out to Methuen, MA to my mom's cousin's house to see the second cousins on my mom's side of the family who we don't get to see too often. It was another fun day...although very disappointing because the Patriots lost badly.

I really enjoyed this year's holiday season with my family and friends. It was enjoyable and relaxing. I was reflecting during the holiday that it was just one Christmas ago that I returned from my semester abroad. Last Christmas I was jet-lagged and going through re-entry, and this year I was resting up from a very busy semester of student teaching! Both Christmas breaks were very welcome vacations!