I realize Christmas was about two weeks ago but I still want to recap the holiday. We spent the week of Christmas wrapping gifts and packing for our trip down to Dothan/Montgomery. We got into Dothan Thursday afternoon and stayed until Christmas afternoon. It was nice being home for that long. It's been a while. Our first Christmas surprise was that my dad bought us a king-bed for my room at home. The old bed in my room was a little snug and created a small sleeping problem the first time we were home (together as a married couple) at Thanksgiving. My dad's first solution to the problem was simple to him...sleep separately. Um, no. So plan B it was...buy a new bed. I'll admit, sleeping in a king is the way to go.
Since this was our first Christmas to spend together (yes, we've never done Christmas in the 5 years we've dated), I was excited to share the Hayes family traditions with Kyle. Our main tradition consists of spending A LOT of time in the kitchen making traditional Christmas goodies. I jokingly called my mom a cooking robot this year. I seriously can't remember how many cakes she baked but only one of them mattered to me...her red velvet cake. Ya'll, it's to die for!!!
This year I appreciated my mom's Christmas decor a lot more now that I know what all it takes to decorate a home for Christmas. I always enjoy looking at our old home-made ornaments and seeing how my mom redecorates the house from year to year.
It was SUPER sweet and nice that Kyle agreed to coming to Dothan for our first Christmas. We were able to stick to tradition and do Christmas Eve with my dad's family, Christmas morning with my parents and Christmas lunch with my mom's family. Yes, Kyle did have to adjust to another holiday spent traveling the roads but he quickly got over it once he realized how much fun it was!!!! On Christmas eve, we headed over to my grandmother's house (dad's mom) for dinner and dirty Santa.
On Christmas morning, Santa made his annual visit to our parents house and guess what?! This year he brought gifts for Kyle as well. "Santa" still displays all of our gifts in our specific spots in the den each year. "Santa" does a great job! We were up and at um at 7:45am with "Santa's" traditional "ho, ho, ho" down the hallway. Some traditions are too important to change even when your children are in their 20's.
After opening gifts we quickly headed down to my grandparent's (mom's side) house to open gifts and eat a quick lunch. Before all of the festivities my sweet grandfather always says the most heart-felt, genuine prayer that gives thanks for the events that have occurred in our family's lives the past year and prays for the year ahead. It's hard to find a dry eye in the room afterward.
After our time with my family we drove to Montgomery to spend some time with Kyle's family. I enjoyed partaking in some of their Christmas traditions which included: hunting for the Christmas pickles and getting new Christmas ornaments. This year, Kyle's parents hid 3 pickles. I found the biggest for $10, Kyle found the medium for $20 and Ethan found the baby for $50. It was absolutely hilarious to watch us get on our hands and knees searching for those pickles.
Christmas night we enjoyed a delicious dinner of beef tenderloin and then opened Christmas presents. I'm not going to lie, it was a LONG day but well worth it. We both admitted that we're pretty lucky that our families live relatively close enough that we could spend the day with all of our family members.
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