Christmas 2016 Pics

Reasons why I am so behind in posting:

• Football - The Steelers winning the last nine games had me sleepless.
• Volunteering - I'm working very hard with my congregation to get their blog up and running and my own blog has suffered.
• Having a laptop - My husband finally got me a laptop which sits in my living room on the arm of my new couch. That has not only become my new workspace, keeping me from my desk and desk computer, but it is also our new end table too.
• My new year's resolution - to write a romance novel has got me reading them. Harlequin who publishes new writers told me that I needed to select a romance genre and to read up on each one as they each have their own criteria. Having the Kindle app on my phone, means I have these books 24/7, and I'm reading them at a feverish pace.

It's like the whole birthday thing all over again. And speaking of that one, I purchased my January cards and had them filled out, addressed, and stamped weeks before the birthdays, and guess what? Yeah. I still forgot them.

So all of the above is why I'm just now publishing Christmas information. It was a great one this year with Tom's family. Everyone showed up and there was lots of card playing, games, beaching, eating, drinking, and merriment. Here are the pics:

We had our tree early again this year. Tom and I took the dog and walked our city park that always goes wild with lights and displays. After we left there, my husband suggested we get a tree. We drove to Home Depot's parking lot where they were selling trees. All of the trees were wrapped in that plastic netting so you couldn't tell if the tree was something you liked or not. Tom selected a tree and the employee cut through the netting, banged the tree on the ground, and we loved it. It was perfect.

Me: "Great. We'll take it. Wrap it up!"

My friend Jim, who I have breakfast with each Thursday morning, came to a dinner wearing some red, white, and blue stars on his head. We told him that it wasn't very Christmas-y so I got him something to replace his stars. He was thrilled.

Darcy loves Christmas. She begins wearing her Santa hat about two weeks before school lets out and spreads Christmas cheer everywhere she goes. This was a photo session she insisted I take wearing someone else's Christmas sweater in front of our tree.

I join her every year in her Santa hat wearing. Just like I do with my front yard decor, I incorporate the holidays and my football together.

Even Elliot got into the spirit of Christmas by borrowing this little necklace from his friend Bella who came over to visit with Jim one day. Jim, who is a worse talker than I am, brought me a Christmas gift. It was a hummingbird feeder with sugar water. I was shocked and very touched because he had actually listened to me during one of our conversations when I was telling him I wanted hummingbirds in my yard.

My two college nephews arrived first. They stay with us for the holidays because I'm fun they hang with the girls. Both of them got off of their planes with long hair so we all went and had our dos done for the festivities.

One of the things we all like to do is take photos of the redheads. Every time any red heads are together we are snapping their pictures. It's crazy that we have four of them in this family and not one of the parents are true red heads.

The family rented a "penthouse" condo near the beach. It was the same one they rented the previous year and it has a huge porch that wraps around the back of the entire condo. This is the view from two of the sides.

We do a Yankee exchange with Tom's family. We had twenty people and everyone picks a number. The rules are you can take a gift and open it or steal one from someone else who has already opened their gift. We do a lot of changing of gifts. I ended up with the one I brought to the party; my GlowBowl and Poopouri. I think I pick the best gifts so why not take them home?

This was the whole gang, minus me the picture taker, before we dug into the Christmas gifts. This was in the condo after we had consumed Christmas dinner. This was also after my Steelers made it into the playoffs. Everyone was just relieved I was in a good mood.

This is Grandma with nine of her Grandchildren. The first picture took several tries to get it right. The second one was a bit easier, although it took a while to get Grandma (picture three) to act ridiculous.

My most favorite game of the holiday was "Mafia". We played it over and over again no matter whose house we ended up in. It's a game of lies and deceit. I thought I was pretty good at it.

We played other games too and tons of cards. This is a family of game players and eaters. We spent good quality time together, and everyone agreed it was the perfect holiday week. Until next year, peeps!