Christmas with our Families

The 1st family Christmas celebration was down at the beach, where David's family lives. We stayed with his dad, who lives about 2 blocks from the ocean, but most of the pictures are from the Christmas party at his mom's house who lives right on the sound. We got down to the beach on Friday, just in time for the tail end of one of David's good friend's 30th birthday party. So we hung out with those people for the rest of that night, then the next morning David and his dad went to the country club to play golf. I joined them a little later so I could be the photographer. Here are a coulple of my shots. David and his dad like to walk instead of ride in a cart for more exercise. After they played a while he had me get some pictures of him at the practice tee so he could see how is swing looked. Here's one of my action shots.

After golf, the 3 of us had lunch there at the country club, then just relaxed at his dad's house until dinner at his mom's.His mom's house was really decked out for Christmas. She had several Christmas trees around the house and this one HUGE one right as you came up the stairs into the living room.

Jane and Everett cooked a wonderful beach Christmas dinner with shrimp and scallops and seafood chowder. The kids sat at a separate table and ate first while the adults sat around and chatted.

I was also able to get some really good updated pictures of David, his brother and his dad together.

And David and I got a great picture together along with Ian and Kathy's little dog, Fairway. He was so sweet. He just loved me. When I first got there, he jumped across 2 other people to land in my lap. And of course I loved him too. I can't wait to have pets...maybe after we move I'll get one. Anyway, isn't he cute?!?

After we all enjoyed the delicious meal, we went downstairs to open presents and for an extra surprise!

Once we were all downstairs there was a knock at the front door, and one of the kids went to open it. Then they all went wild becuase it was SANTA!!! Jane had arranged for the parks and recrecation guy, who dresses up like Santa every year, to come and visit us that evening.

He took each kid on his lap and asked them what they wanted for Christmas, then gave them a candy cane. Here's a picture of all the kids with him together. Then some of us adults got to sit on his lap for a picture too, becuase let's face it, at our age, we're not getting a lot of pictures with Santa. Anyway, it was fun, and the kids had a blast!

Everyone enjoyed opening presents, and we all got some really nice things. We stayed a visited a little while longer, then we went back to his dad's and the next morning did our presents there.

We had to leave to come back home that afternoon, so it was a very short trip, but it was nice to see everyone for the holidays.

On our way back home we stopped in Goldsboro to have dinner with one of David's good friends that he hasn't seen in a while. We didn't leave there til nearly 9pm, so we didn't get home til midnight, and we both went to work the next day for half a day.

So on Christmas eve we met up with my parents and brother and went to movie matinee. We saw National Treasure 2 and all really enjoyed it. Then David and I went back to my parent's house and, even though they only live 15 minutes from us, we spent the night there. It was sooo nice. We had dinner that night, then stayed up playing Balderdash and watching Shrek the 3rd.

On Christmas morning we got up and had a nice big cooked breakfast before opening presents.

Then we all took our time opening presents and sipping egg nog. Here are several pictures of us enjoying ourselves on Christmas morning.

And since this may be the last time we have Christmas with Trixie, I will add a picture of her. She is 14 now and still doing well, but we are not sure how much longer she will be with us.We spent most of the time just relaxing and enjoying the day. We ate snacks and watched another movie. Then we didn't even eat our lunch until nearly 4 o'clock! But when we did eat it, it was definitely delicious. We visited for a little while longer and played another game, then we finally left at 8:30.

We had a wonderful time celebrating Christmas will all our family and friends.