Merry Christmas!

One of my favorite things about Christmas in Texas is the laid-back approach that has dominated the holiday since "us kids" became adults. There's no insane dash to the Christmas tree at the stroke of midnight or entirely too early on Christmas morning to open presents bleary-eyed. Paper doesn't fly everywhere as individuals look over their personal loot. So what do we do?

We wake up when we wake up. Now that I'm a parent, that's a tad earlier than I'd like, but a child wakes when they're ready to wake up and not when I'm ready to wake up - Christmas day or any other day for that matter. haha.

We get the coffee brewing and the sausage balls cooking. We relax in the morning, sometimes getting our of our PJs and sometimes not. Here, Madeline ran over to my dad saying "Pop-a" and sat down. She's too young to understand that gifts await underneath the paper. And besides, she was more interested in the bows than the actual present.

 

And then when it is time to open the presents, we take turns. One by one and get to see and enjoy what everyone gets. I don't remember when this Round Robin approach started, but it's something I look forward to. Watching everyone else open their gifts. I think we started to open our gifts this Christmas at around 10 or 10:30 int he morning after an entire pot of coffee had been consumed and the second was already brewing. 

 

Madeline needed food, so I let her take bites when she wanted and let her walk around the rest of the time. And man did that girl put down some sausage balls! In-between bites, she'd take the crumpled paper and put it in the trash can - to everyone's excited applause.

It was Christmas morning that my mom realized Madeline is drawn to men. The two new people in the room that she continually went to were my brother and dad.

 

She would back up until she sat down in my brother's lap and just stay there.

Then, after we've finished up Christmas at my parent's house, we head to my aunt and uncles for lunch. Lunch, beer, wine and desserts - especially my uncle's cheesecake. Presents at my aunts and uncle's house is more chaotic and paper is flying as everyone discovers what is hiding beneath the neatly wrapped gifts. So I guess I get the best of both Christmas worlds - the laid-back and chaotic approaches :-)

But more important than what is under the tree or in our bellies, or even how we open the presents or what we eat, is the people. Getting together with family. And since I don't get to see my Texas family but a few times a year, it's what the focus of the pictures in this post are about. The time with them.

In fact, as I was looking through the pictures, there wasn't a single picture of a gift. The camera memory card was full of happy faces, hugs and memories of being together. A digital story of what happened - not what was given or received.

You can't wrap up times like these. *Watch out Ethan or you may get bitten!*

But I'm grateful for a camera's ability to snap a moment in time so it brings back the memory of Christmas and what it's supposed to be about.