Traditions

It has become our tradition to get together on Christmas Eve at my Grandma's house. This is when we get to see my brother and his family and exchange gifts with my grandparents and everyone. My grandma has a tradition to get all the grandkids an ornament for Christmas and does a picture calendar with everyone's birthdays, anniversaries etc. We always look forward to seeing the pictures she chooses.

Everyone was dressed up so nice and the boys were just adorable in their suits!! The picture of everyone is not the best... but the boys were ready for presents and SO done with taking pictures. We had a very nice night with everyone.
When we got home from my grandma's house on Christmas Eve night I had a surprise for Kenny. Each year his dad would send him a big box filled with packages and goodies and he would open those gifts on Christmas Eve since that was when his family opened gifts. So to keep the tradition going I got the things like Ron used to buy like slim jims, the giant box of goldfish, velveta etc etc.... just didn't have the mall gift cards. It is more to keep the tradition going and remember him. Kenny was surprised and enjoyed it. We also opened out box from Susie. She included a huge bag of treats for the dogs and they had fun opening the box to get to it-- so cute. My favorite was the "Where in the Hell is Oquawka" shirts (that is the small town she lives in). Very fun.

When Kenny's mom got off work she came over to spend the night. We practically had to beg her to come over-- we thought it would be a nice tradition to have her spend the night and we could hang out Christmas morning. I remember when I was a kid my Grandma Lang would spend the night and when we were a little older my Uncle Rick and his family would come from California and spend the night at our house. My brother and I always loved having family spend the night, especially for Christmas.