Christmas 2013

This Christmas has been so different from the last several years!!! I work in retail and between Thanksgiving and New Year, I have been married to my job. I've always tried to enjoy the holidays as much as possible, but working 6 days a week made it very difficult! This year was different. My company changed it's direction on how it would work its employees during the holidays and I really feel like I was able to reclaim much of the holiday spirit I had lost over the last several years. There is a reason Christmas moved to my second favorite holiday and St. Patrick's Day moved to the top many years ago!! This year may have changed that...but the jury is still out because I don't know if the changes made this year will be perminent and in effect next year!! Fingers crossed!!

Christmas this year for us was pretty low key. My hubby and I don't have any kids, just fur babies. We slept in a bit until he got out of bed around 7:30a (yes, that's sleeping in for us now). When I didn't get up right away, he came running in and jumped on the bed like a little kid would do, begging me to get up so he could open a gift neither of us could figure out! By 8:30a our gifts were unwrapped and our traditional cinnamon bun breakfast was in the oven. We ate breakfast while watching Mickey's Christmas Carol (a favorite of mine as a child) followed by the Disney Parks Parade. Right after the parade we headed over to his parents house, which is a short drive away. His entire family was there including all of out nieces and nephews...13 people to be exact.

While at his parents house, he wanted to try to get a photo of his entire family. We had gotten one of mine when we surprised my parents for Thanksgiving (I'll share that story another day) so it was great to be able to capture his family at Christmas. IHis grandfather used to take a family photo every Christmas and we hadn't gotten one in a LONG time since he passed several years ago. I took my Canon and tripod over to their house to be able to get everyone in the photo.

Of course, we couldn't just do a good, everyone smiling, photo...we also had to do a funny face photo!!  Love both and it was great to get the memory captured this year...especially since it's our youngest niece's first Christmas. Honestly, it was great to get both of our full families captured this year...mine on Thanksgiving and his on Christmas!

I hope you had a very Merry Christmas and are looking forward to ringing in the New Year! Thanks for stopping by!
deb