Holiday Season Wrap-Up

Since today yesterday was the 12th day of Christmas I figured I should share my holiday season photos before the season is too far past.

One last view of my tree with all the presents under it before I packed them up to give them to all my family and friends.  I think I was pretty successful this year in finding things for people that they would enjoy. 

We celebrated Christmas Eve with my husband's family. There was no tree (or any other decorations) at my mother-in-law's place so I brought over the decorations I had purchased for our hospital Christmas celebration and one of my brother-in-laws dug out of storage the fabulous shinny pink tree.  I think all in all it turned out pretty well for setting it up in 10 minutes and it served it's purpose.

My husband and his siblings dug deep into their memories (and maybe Google) to make their traditional Noche Buena dinner. My contribution was a delicious ice cream pie that we were so full and tired that we forgot to eat.  I also helped wrap the molo (dumplings) for the soup.  There was so much more food than can be seen in this picture that it shouldn't come as a surprise that we were too full for desert.

After staying up way to late celebrating with my husband's family we got up Christmas morning and drove to my parent's house.  We had a nice morning opening presents and eating breakfast with my family.  The last few years Santa has give us "kids" silly string in our stockings so we have had an annual silly string fight. The street (and sometimes our cars) always look like an Easter egg exploded all over my parent's cul-de-sac.  

After a relaxing afternoon playing games (and maybe napping) we got dressed up to go to my aunt and uncle's house to celebrate with my extended family.

We did a Secret Santa with both sides of our family and it actually worked out really well.  After opening presents with my family we decided to try to take a picture. As you can see this went really well.  Actually there are nice versions of this but I like this one that my sister took (on purpose) while getting the camera set up.

New Year's Eve we were again with my husband's family and again there was no shortage of food.  We had a whole spread of Italian meats, cheeses and other delicious things.  This time we did not forget to eat dessert and my ice cream pie from Christmas was eaten.

We spent New Year's in our pajamas eating, playing games and relaxing.  

There are lots of fun traditions in my husband's family. One is to eat 12 round things at midnight so we took care of this by eating 12 M&Ms.  They open all drawers, doors, cabinents and pretty much anything that could be opened before midnight to let out the old and then close everything up right after midnight to keep in the new. They also jingle 12 coins as the clock approaches midnight to promote wealth for the year.  

We had these fun crackers that came with paper crowns so of course we had to wear them.  When it was time to pop the last one I got it and it had the one and only purple crown so it was meant to be.

Now I just have take down my Christmas decorations.  I know many people take down their decorations right after the 25th but I always leave mine up through all 12 days of Christmas.  I am sad that the holiday season is over but am looking forward to all new adventures this year.