Christmas in North Carolina

Being pregnant and all, I was totally against traveling anywhere for the holidays this year. So, my whole family decided to make the trek to our house for Christmas. Luckily, my Aunt and Uncle aren't moving back to Ohio until after New Year's Day, so they were able to house a few of our guests. The boys and their girlfriends stayed with Dini & Bill. My parents, Kathleen and nephew Noah stayed with us.

As tradition would have it, Dylan and I both ended up being sick the entire week everyone was here. Lucky for us all, Dylan was in pretty good spirits. Although, we did make a trip to Urgent Care on Christmas Eve. The child has been sick with a cold/cough for about two months and it seemed to get worse last week. Turns out he had ear infections in both ears. No wonder he'd been such a crab and sleeping like crap! We got him on some amoxicillin and hoped he would start to feel better. Unfortunately, that made him break out in hives. So, we called the Dr back up and got him on something else. Me? I just had a fun cold that made me miserable. We tried hard to not let our illness ruin the holiday, but I really didn't sleep good most of the time everyone was here.

My family's tradition is to celebrate on Christmas Eve. We had a yummy dinner (fried rice, several dips, chips, desserts, etc...we're into finger foods in this house), then my Dad gave a talk about the birth of the Savior and the reason why we celebrate this season, followed by some serious unwrapping of presents. The gift part can get a bit overwhelming and we were worried that Dylan would need to save some for the next morning. The kid, however, surprised us and just tore through his gifts. I feel like this was his first 'real' Christmas because he finally understood what was going on, so it was a lot of fun to watch him and hear all his little expressions as he opened each gift.

Christmas morning, my Mom made her amazing Caramel Rolls and Hot Chocolate. We spent the rest of the morning cooking a nice traditional dinner (ham, turkey, scalloped potatoes, green bean casserole, pumpkin roll, etc). The rest of the day was spent watching football, lounging and just chatting. All in, we had a nice couple of days and everyone made out well with gifts.

No, my kid does not like to wear clothes. This was Dylan before all the festivities on Christmas Eve. He was totally ready to get started.

With 11 stockings to hang, the fireplace mantle was a little too small.

Just a glimpse of the amount of gifts. I had to take about 8 pictures to get them all.

Sweet cousins getting ready to open their presents. These two had a lot of fun together.

One of Dylan's favorite gifts is his new train table from Gram and Pa.

This was my mantle. Turned out pretty cute, thanks to my Mom. I started doing 'Elf on the Shelf' with Dylan this year. He had a great time finding 'Red' each day. I really do think it helped him behave himself the past few weeks.

I really wish I had taken some more pictures, but with being sick I just wasn't in the mood. The memories, however, will stay with me. Now I just have to figure out how to get Dylan to understand that it's going to be a long time before he gets to open presents again.