A "Growing" Tradition

Our family had a very blessed Christmas, and we put hundreds of miles on the truck to see both sides of our families.  It was a whirlwind week to say the least! We're exhausted, but had so much fun.

Here's what it looked like up at our place on Christmas Eve morning:

Here's what it looked like after several hours of traveling:

Hmmm....a White Christmas, or 70 degrees and sunny....it's a toss up as to which was better, but we got to experience both weather scenarios in one day!

At my folks house, we had a big Italian dinner with all of the family, and then opened up gifts before attending church that evening.

I thought that my brother's years of wrapping gifts in duct tape and newspaper were going to end now that he's married, but apparently, my sister-in-law has yet to assert her new domestic authority on matters of wrapping paper.  So the newspaper made another appearance. Notice the lovely Budweiser advertisement on my daughter's gift.

As many of you know, my brother and I have a weird and stupid Christmas tradition that involves exchanging an Elmer Fudd Chia Pet back and forth for the last 12 years.  I won't go into the details, except to say that each year we are forced to get more creative in an attempt to disguise the Chia.  About 4 years ago, I also found the PERFECT Chia Pet card to go along with the gift.  Now we put a new layer of paper over the card each year that contains a creative story about returning the Chia Pet to its rightful owner.  Here's the card:

When you open the card, it sings "Cha- Cha- Cha Chia!"

Anyway, this year my brother went all out on his disguise of the Chia.  He bought an old Winnie the Pooh bear from the thrift store, cut it open, took out the stuffing, and put the Chia Pet inside. 

Then, my own mother became an accomplice to the crime as she sewed the bear back together.

It felt  hard inside like an old Teddy Ruxpin bear with the cassette player in it's tummy. 

I'm already plotting next year's revenge. MWAHAHAHAHA!!!! (That's my evil laugh!)

After church that evening, we went to fill the truck up with diesel to make the trip back home, and here's what the sign said:

YIKES! At $31.59 a gallon, it would be over a thousand dollars to fill up the truck. I knew the price of diesel was going up, but I had no idea it was this high! Ha Ha!

We made the long trip up the mountain that night while the kids slept in the back seat.  The moon was so big and beautiful that it reflected off of the snow, and made for a gorgeous midnight drive.

On Christmas evening we had more family coming over the mountain to eat dinner at our house, and I have no pictures of this because I was busy babysitting my prime rib in the oven.  It was the first time I've ever made a prime rib, and I was so nervous!  When you're cooking a high dollar cut of meat, you don't want to blow it!  It's not like cooking a meatloaf.  I could smell the aroma of money cooking in the oven. There's no time to snap photos when you're in the middle of a serious cooking assignment!!

After dinner we had a nice, relaxing evening spent with family.

Needless to say, our Christmas was very special!