Here I am, wondering how I’ll ever get this blog caught up after a nearly year-long pause…. what better place to start than Christmas? Now that we’re well over 6 months past the holidays, the stress has been forgotten and the amazingness has lingered. This past year was especially great as we got the one thing we wanted but the last thing we expected…. my sister. My dad seamlessly pulled off the surprise of a lifetime. After a lot of deliberation Jory had decided she wouldn’t make it home from North Carolina for Christmas. This would be a first and our spirits were low. Little did we know she and my dad had been plotting otherwise for months. My mom, Meghan and I were completely unsuspecting, even trying to have a Christmas tree delivered to her in Fayetteville the very day she surprised us. My dad asked us to gather the eve before Christmas Eve because his gift was going to ‘expire’ otherwise. We definitely should have guessed what was in store for us when a wrapped-up refrigerator-sized box appeared. But no… we were clueless as we nervously approached the gift.

 

Safe to say our holiday was made after that little stunt. Christmas Eve we cozied up at my parents’ house for dinner and gifts before E, Joe and I went home to build the Santa booby-trap we’d been planning all year-long. Would you believe we woke up Christmas morning to find we’d captured Santa’s stinky sock? It’s true.

 

 

The next morning we caught the Christmas Day mass while Joe made a berry pancake feast. My sisters built gingerbread houses with Emerson and we rocked around the Christmas tree until it was time for her to head to her dad’s for Christmas #2.  It was another great Christmas week spent together as a family and far from the last!