Presents vs. Presence

Well, I've officially decided that holidays suck without my family being in tact.  I'm told that it'll get easier and my mom says we need to make new memories and new traditions.  Not gonna lie, I'm sort of partial to my old memories and my old traditions!  I have gotten used to scheduling our Christmas celebrations around football season (along with everything else in our lives) so being able to actually open presents and go to church when "normal" people do was a little odd.  After eating a Tofurky last year for Christmas dinner since my dad had started chemo and couldn't eat meat, this year's buffalo roast was so much yummier!  But, the biggest change this year has been the lack of presents under the tree. 

Tim and I after church on Christmas Eve

Although my mom still insists on wrapping gifts in "Santa" paper and telling us that he has come to deliver presents, "Santa" officially stopped coming to our house a long time ago.  This year he randomly came on Christmas eve morning :-)  In the past, we would get a few great gifts and lots of money to go out and get other ones of our choosing.  This year, we have realized that the meaning of the season is not what gifts you get but what gifts you give to others in the form of your presence in their lives.  We would give any amount of money or material possessions to have even one more day with my dad in our lives so it seems a little silly to spend money on gifts that'll be out of style in a month when we should be thanking God for sending his Son to us and allowing us to have the celebration of Christmas to begin with.  So, this year, we have made it a point to celebrate with presence rather than presents.  Here are some of the ways we celebrated all the blessings in our lives: 


**Spending Thanksgiving with the Baker family- We started the holiday season by driving from Nashville to Massanutten, Virginia to join the Baker family for Thanksgiving.  We rented some little town houses and enjoyed catching up with my mom's brother and sister and all of their kids.  It was the first time in as long as I can remember, if ever, that all of our family on this side was together (minus cousin Christina- missed you!)  Thank you Kevin for fixing my blog and making it look pretty again!  With my grandfather suffering from dementia and getting up in age, we figured that spending time with him and the family was more important than anything else...Hopefully we can get together more often and see everyone again before too long!

My winning cookies!

**Cookie Exchange- I thought I'd steal a page from fellow blogger TickedPink's book and host a cookie exchange for all my girl friends to get together before the holidays.  It is a rare day that we can all get together without kids and husbands/boyfriends to just have a little girl talk and enjoy each other's company!  We had such a great time catching up, talking about all the babies that are coming our way this year, & eating lots and lots of cookies.  Thank goodness Sarah fired me from making my own 6 dozen cookies- outsourcing helped me win the prize for "best overall cookie!"




**Parade of Lights- It's been at least 10 years since I've made my way downtown to enjoy the parade of lights.  I have a certain love for Christmas lights and fireworks...they just make everything look so much more beautiful!  Pair that with our amazing downtown area, and it made for a wonderful date night for Tim and I!  The parade wasn't as amazing as the Macy's one in New York (maybe I'll go see that next year!) but we had a great time all the same.

**Holiday Parties- Taking time to catch up with co-workers at our annual Christmas party was such a blessing.  With the school that I work for, we have 50 school sites under our charter and all my friends and I have multiple locations assigned to us.  We travel hundreds of miles every month to our schools and, with all that time in the car, rarely get time to catch up with each other.  For our celebration this year, we made snowmen and then came to the office to a casino-themed party.  I walked in with such a terrible attitude; not excited at all about the "mandatory" holiday party but ended up having a wonderful time learning how to play Blackjack and laughing with my colleagues.  I loved it so much that I think I'll be throwing my own casino party this summer! 
We also took time out to go to Comedy Works with Tim's new job to see Kathleen Madigan.  She was so ridiculously funny and I had a great time getting to put faces with the names and stories that Tim has shared with me about his new job. 


**Transiberian Orchestra- I thought that going to see Transiberian Orchestra would be the perfect Christmas outing for my family and Tim to celebrate after the holidays.  Since I purchased 5 tickets for us, we asked Tim's mom to come along with us in my dad's place.  What we expected to be a relaxing show full of traditional Christmas songs with a twist, turned out to be, "a cross between Metallica and Christmas" (according to Tim).  After 2 hours of electric guitars, flashing strobe lights, and 80's hair flips, we walked out of the Pepsi Center feeling like we needed to fight someone.  Not exactly the relaxing Christmas evening we had expected.  Thank you Josh Groban for providing some real Christmas music during the car ride home and allowing us to relax.  I think I'll stick to Handel's Messiah next year. :-) 

**Cousin's Ski Weekend- One of the best memories of this season has to be the cousin's ski weekend that we organized.  All of my dad's side of the family lives in the Chicago area and we rarely get to see them more than once a year when we head up there for the Brown Family Reunion.  It's so much fun to get together with the family now that most of my 15 cousins are getting into their adult years.  No more kid's table for us!  Several of the cousins made the trek from Chicago to come visit us here in Colorado and we had an absolute BLAST together for three days!  The weekend was just 100% relaxing and fun, complete with spa day for the girls, a day of skiing with beautiful 40-degree weather, more alcohol and food than we could consume in a week, and memories that will last forever!  Although one cousin ended up in the hospital for altitude sickness (that thin air is rough), we decided that we are going to make this an annual event!  Can't wait for next year!!

Skiing at Breck

Spa day with the girls!

**Family is Home!- The best Christmas gift that I could ask for came to Denver on the 14th.  Having mom and Brian back home with me has been wonderful (minus all the unpacking that we're having to do!)  We have spent lots of nights watching movies, putting together puzzles, and just enjoying each other's company.  SO glad to have them back home with me!

I think I could get used to spending more time over the holidays enjoying the company of family and friends than in the malls searching for the perfect gift for them.
Hope that you all had blessed Christmas celebrations!!!  Happy Holidays!:-)