Christmas 2014

Hi everyone!  I hope that you had a wonderful Christmas spent with loved ones, celebrating the birth of Jesus.  We had an almost-week-long celebration, so let's take a look at what all we did!

Wednesday
On Christmas Eve, I started the day with a run!

It didn't go as well as I wanted it to, but a bad run is better than no run!  After that, we drove to Gainesville to spend Christmas with Joe's family.

When we arrived, we quickly got ready and went to the Christmas Eve service at 4pm.  We ate dinner together (nothing says Christmas Eve like Mexican food, right?), then headed over to Joe's friends house for their annual gathering.

Thursday
We had a leisurely Christmas morning, waking up around 9am.  We opened presents with Joe's siblings, then headed out to the horse farm for Christmas lunch with Joe's mom's side of the family.

We ate lunch and visited for a while with everyone over there.  To work off our meal, Joe and I decided to walk around the property for a little while in the afternoon.  Things are always interesting

Around 6pm, we drove up to Georgia for Christmas with Joe's dad's side of the family.  We visited for a little bit before going to bed relatively early.

Friday
We had another very leisurely day with Joe's grandparents.  We were the first to arrive, so we all ate lunch together than watched football and read waiting for everyone else to get there.

More family members arrived around 6 or 7, so we ate dinner together and caught up for a few hours.  It was great to get to see everyone (and play with Joe's cousin's son Will)

Saturday
We had the big Christmas celebration on Saturday!  It began with gift opening, where two people pass out the presents and everyone opens things all at once.  It gets kind of crazy!

Will had a blast playing in all the wrapping paper afterward.  It was lots of fun watching him.

Next up was a large lunch!

There was plenty of great food, and the company was great too.  After such a big meal, we watched football (Hokies win!!) and let our food settle.

The last part of the Christmas celebration was their tradition of going to the movies in the evening.  We all went to see Unbroken, which was an incredible story about an Olympic runner who served in World War II and was captured by the Japanese.

Sunday
We all went to church together on Sunday morning, which was a really nice way to end the weekend.

Afterward, we went to have lunch together at a local buffet before we parted ways.

Joe, his siblings, and I drove back to Gainesville to spend time with his mom.  Before it got dark, Katherine (my sister-in-law) and I went on a 3.5 mile walk with the dogs.  It was great to get out and get some exercise while seeing some great Christmas lights!

In the evening, we all played Apples to Apples, which was a lot of fun (particularly because I wound up winning!).

Overall, we had a very nice Christmas!

As much as I enjoyed seeing everyone, I'm looking forward to getting home and getting back in to a regular schedule.  Traveling can really take a lot out of you!

Question for you: How was your Christmas?  Do you travel for Christmas or stay home to celebrate?