once, twice, three times a christmas

Matt and I got to celebrate three Christmases this year, once with his family, once with my mom, and once with my dad and maw-maw. So this post may seem late to you, but really we only finished Christmas this past Saturday.
(In your face, critical Mcjudgey pants!!!)

Christmas #1

We spent Dec 23rd-26th in Florence with Matt's parents, sister and her family, and Grandaddy. Grampa, Dorothy, Matt's Aunt Melanie and cousin Jake came for a couple days too. It was extremely fun and very relaxing. The meal highlight: 2 deep fried Cajun turkeys. Soooo good. The baby liked it.The kids got a wii for Christmas, so we played with them all day, and then waited for them to go to bed, so we could take over. I did pretty well at golf, but Matt was almost perfection when it came to figure skating... that's right, figure skating.

The afternoon of the 26th, all of us came to Winston, ate lunch at Little Richard's (Prissy Polly's was closed much to Andrew's disappointment), and went out to Gabe's spot. We then went to Matt's Uncle Bill and Aunt Patsy's to have an extended family Christmas with Debbie's side of the family.

Deac with his best friend, Grandaddy.

Matt and Kim at Patsy's

Matt with his cousin, Jack.

Too much Christmas??? (Will and Andrew)

Christmas #2 and Mom's birthday

We spent the 27th and 28th at my brother's house in Chapel Hill with Peyton, Amy, the kids, my mom and sisters. Again, lots of fun where the highlights were more gift-opening, making our own pizzas, playing cards, and line-dancing in the kitchen (while Peyton "free-styled").

Christmas #3

This past Saturday, Peyton, Amy, the kids, Dad and Maw-Maw came down/over for a late Christmas at our house. It was the first time Maw-Maw's ever seen my house, so I was excited that we did it here. I was also excited about Dad's steak, which is pretty much the best steak I've ever tasted. I made twice baked potatoes and Peyton and Matt made an excellent salad. Amy provided the coconut cream pie and apple pie (referenced in the previous post). It was a GREAT meal, and I was glad it wasn't turkey and dressing. We followed up the eating with even MORE gift opening, the boys playing basketball, the girls relaxing on the deck, and "Pop" and the kids roasting marshmallows in our new chiminea that Dad gave us. It's great to have it out in Gabe's garden, and I'll be sure to take a pic of how it all looks once the Spring comes, and it's looking all nice again.

White men CAN lower the goal to eight feet jump.

And last but certainly not least... Raya , who is always super sweet and cute, but somehow always gets left off the blog.

So, after an hour of uploading photos and re-doing spacing a thousand times, that was our Christmas this year. Hooray! Shaina took the majority of these pictures, which is awesome, but is also not IN any of them, which is very sad. Don't worry, we didn't celebrate Christmas without her.