Weekend Wanderings: Home for the Holidays: Part I: Texas

Hello readers! I have been quiet since New Years as I get back into the swing of things after the holidays. I’ve decided to share my holidays with you. Happy reading and happy New Year!

The holidays are a busy time of year with travel and food preparation and decorating, not to mention shopping for gifts. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in all the little things that really matter: family, friends, and celebration of whatever you celebrate from religion to just happy to be off work.

Christmas time for me involves multiple Christmas celebrations with my dad’s family, my mom’s family, and my boyfriend’s family. I feel the need to bring a dessert to all of them. As you can see from this post, I did my best to do that. Every year we do Christmas with my dad’s family on Christmas Eve. The kitchen was chaos and we spent half the day asking my dad and uncle, who were smoking the tenderloin, what the ETA was on the meat. Even with the little warning, we got everything done in time and Christmas dinner was glorious.  

After dinner came the cleanup and dishes. My cousin’s face when he saw the amount left to wash had me rolling with laughter. It was a wide-eyed look of disbelief and unpreparedness for the amount. The washing up for 16 people is not light. After dinner came gifts.

Now there are too many of us to get everyone something so we get things for the grandparents and we each bring a gift for the gift exchange. Rules for the McGee gift exchange:

• Make a themed basket (movies, body wash, dog gifts, etc.)
• Minimum spend $50
• All gifts can be stolen twice before they are locked

My gift was kind of complicated. I bought a simple cookbook at Recycled Books and then went through it and found four recipes. From those, I went to the grocery store and bought all the nonperishables: spices, oils, soy sauce, sugar. I also added a gift card to Tom Thumb so that whoever ended up with the basket could get the perishables like meat and produce. My uncle that cooks a lot ended up with my basket and he seemed quite happy about it. I got the gift my cousin brought: an adorable Kate Spade purse and a Pink Himalayan Salt Lamp. I had to steal it from Emily but she was happy about that. There was a slight disagreement over the cooler my dad brought as a gift. My cousin, Kat, had to snag it from my cousin Justin and he did not want to relinquish it.

Bear next to my gift exchange gift.

It was a wonderful evening with food and family, eggnog and gifts. After the festivities it was time for bed, not because Santa was coming, we are all too old for that but because Brooke, Keltin, and I had to be up fairly early to head to head to my mom’s family Christmas and we had a bit of a drive. The Youngblood Christmas was smaller but no less enjoyable. Nine of us ate, laughed, and opened gifts. My aunt and uncle got my grandparents a Google Home for Christmas and we had a good time setting it up and teaching them how to use it. After Christmas dinner, it was time to head home. Work was the next day. 

I’d love to hear about your holiday celebrations. Please feel free to post them in the comments or post a link to your blog page.

**Note: I’m really bad about taking pictures at family functions. I hope that you enjoy the pictures of my dog, Bear.