Christmas in Texas

After Christmas and just before the new year, my family came in from all over Texas to celebrate Christmas with us. It was extra special because for the 2nd time in the past couple of months, we've ALL been together.

This picture is a glimpse of our front yard. When I was away at training in early December, Don had put up the lights all by himself. It was the sweetest gesture and I really appreciated his hard work. Also, if you look closely folks, that is snow! I had to go to work that day and weather forecasters predicted quite a bit of snowfall. By noon, it was just rain. On my commute home that day, I still saw snow. But the closer and closer I got to home, instead of rain drops, I saw snowflakes. It was so, so lovely. Best of all, it felt like Christmas!

Brother and Melissa safely arrived around 9 and the festivities began. Under our tiny tree were loads and loads of happy gifts smiling back at us. It was so nice to receive actual gifts this year instead of gift cards. Some of the gifts were a nice surprise too! This gift is from Brother. He was channeling Mom/Santa from our childhood. We always knew when mom was nearing the end of the night because all that remained were scraps of wrapping paper. To cover the gifts, there'd be a beautiful patchwork design of gift wrap. This was a tiny bit of nostalgia and a gift in and of itself. Thanks for the happies, Brother!
I'd sewed Texas Tech aprons for the family. 3 girlie aprons with gathering and shiny white blanket binding for the strings and 1 straight across apron for my brother and a pocket. I've already tweaked that pattern slightly to better fit the folks I know who work in the food industry. They all seemed to enjoy them! (oh, and I'd made two aprons for a gift exchange in Kansas and our cousin said that hers reminded her of one that was in Anthropologie. Talk about a compliment!)

And Santa brought me the gift that I'd been begging for since the summer: a Texas Tech snuggie!!! Yee-haw! I'd only been bugging ALL of my family for it since October, and they all confessed that each of them nearly bought one for me, so I would've had Snuggies galore. Lucky for me, though, they did talk to one another and I just got the one. Here I am with my siblings enjoying the fabulous comfort of the Snuggie.
Mari, again, was reluctant to open gifts, flat out refusing one of them. However, she received a baby stroller from Primo and was in HEAVEN. Immediately, she took DeeDee (her new baby) and BeeBee placed them into her new stroller and happily ran all around the house.

I love the holidays. While loads of nostalgia floods the mind, (years past of broken hearts around this time, coupled with fabulously happy family memories) I'm reminded just how important family is, and the advent of a new and fresh year, full of promise and beginnings.

I hope you all enjoyed your time off and were able to share with your loved ones!