Christmas time was here.....

Let me start by explaining why I was dreading Christmas so much:

My family in New Mexico always has a big dinner/get-together on Christmas Eve at my grandparents house.

Gary's family doesn't.

Christmas day everyone goes to my grandparents again to finish off the left overs and just hang out for a while.

Gary's family doesn't.

I always go day-after-Christmas shopping with my mom.

She was in New Mexico.

To top it all off, I kept imagining how different my house would be if we had two little feet running around trying to take ornaments off the tree and making general toddler trouble.

But he is with his family now.

OK, so now the good part!

I was determined to make Christmas Eve a little like Grandmas, so I put Tamales on the stove to cook. We also had cookies and sparkling grape juice!

My mom, knowing how upset I was, called to assure me that I wasn't missing much, and that most of the family had gone down to Grandmas for Thanksgiving (which I got to see!) so they were spending Christmas Eve with their other families.

Instead of seeing everyone in one house, Gary and I traveled to his families houses and visited a while with everybody.

1st we went to his sisters house. We visited with her and the kids, we also dropped off their gifts (I heard they were a hit on Christmas morning! (Yay Aunt Sam!!))

We went and visited Grandpa & Uncle Lee. Gary's cousins Ashlee (and Chase) & AJ were there, as well as his Aunt & Uncle. It was really nice seeing people we don't see very often.

Then we visited his mom & dad, who we see all the time, but it was still nice.

We came home and enjoyed our quasi-New Mexico Christmas Eve!

On Christmas Morning we exchanged gifts (Santa was good to us this year!!), got ready and went to Gary's dads house.

There was yummy food (and a delicious punch I need the recipe for), Gary's Sisters & Brother and all their kiddos. While we ate everyone laughed and had fun, then came the presents! Gary and I got some cool stuff along with stockings for the dogs (they are so spoiled by their Grandpa Grant).

While everyone was opening presents I got a little sad and teared up a bit at the fact that we were a family of two sitting in our little area, while every other little family there had at least four. Seeing all the kids unwrap their presents and show their parents, I kept wondering "what if?".

But I also realized that I am very blessed in my own right, I have a wonderful husband who sat with me through those tears and tried to cheer me up, he also made sure I was busy the rest of the day to keep my mind off stuff. My niece Abbi made my day when she only wanted Aunt Sam to fix her hair and shared her Dolly with me. Later in the day at Grandpas house, Gary's Aunt Gail made me laugh, I met his cousins Cody's wife, Janelle, and she is so nice! We had a great time visiting with them.

That night we came home to our cute little house, even though it was quiet, I did have two 4 legged kiddos waiting to give us lots of love.

So this has been a really long post about Christmas and how much I was dreading it, and how great it turned out to be...sorry so long! But it just goes to show you that sometimes you just have to give things/people/days a chance and you might be surprised!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope it was fantastic!!

P.s. My birthday was great too!!