Merry Christmas

Here is the fifth and final installment of my favorite Christmas memories.  You can read my last four here, here, here, and here.  

Merry Christmas!  I hope you all are enjoying your morning!  Christmas morning has always been a special time for me.  As a kid, it was the anticipation and the excitement of seeing what Santa brought and even in to adulthood, I still felt that excitement but it was often directed more towards giving the perfect gift and seeing loved ones.  As I have mentioned before, we spent most of our Christmas mornings at my Grandma Louise and Grandpa Offey's house.  I loved waking up with my other cousins, sneaking in to the den to see what kind of loot we scored!  There are too many memories of the many Christmas mornings to share just one.  It's like a whirlwind of images and if I put them all together it would make the most perfect Christmas!

There was the year where Santa left clues and a scavenger hunt to find where our presents were hidden.  The year my cousin got a Barbie mansion that we played with for hours.  The year "Santa" forgot to put out the presents before we woke up (to credit my parents, we were all old enough to know who the real Santa was) and we had to wake up our parents, go back to bed, and wait for "Santa" to come and leave our gifts.  Oh, and every year my aunts and uncles and other cousins would stop by in the afternoon and we would have a big meal and more presents.  Every Christmas Day seemed to last forever, there was always one more gift to open, one more family member to see.

Now that I am an adult and some of these traditions have changed I am making new memories of Christmas.  I look forward to spending time with family, sharing memories of Christmases past, watching the younger generation's excitement over Santa and the season.  I have enjoyed making gifts this season, each one made specifically for a special person.  The past five years, I have enjoyed spending Christmas with my husband and his family.  This year my family visited on Christmas Eve.  We ate homemade Brunswick Stew and pimento cheese sandwiches.  This evening my hubby's family is coming in to town for a few days.  We are cooking a pork butt on the smoker today, a nice relaxing activity on a cool Christmas Day.  This Christmas, I wake up to a quiet house with just me and my husband.  I miss the hustle and bustle of a house full of family, but I cherish the time we get to spend together on the wonderful holiday.

I hope you and yours have a wonderful Holiday Season.  Merry Christmas!