My sister Heidi has requested that I blog about the best Christmas in Alabama and the best one in UT. This will be our tenth Christmas together, and we have traveled for every single one of them (during the Christmas season counts, if not there on the actual day), except for 2002, when Katrina was 6 weeks old. Traveling during the holidays stinks, but Mark and I are both incredibly sentimental, so we put up with lots of headache to be with loved ones.
My favorite Christmas in Alabama was Christmas 2000. I was pregnant with Felicity, so it was just Mark and I and his immediate family: his mom, dad, and sister. Rewa had not yet remarried, so she was there with lots of free time. Christmas Eve was on a Sunday, which I love, because it forces us to enjoy that day too, since Mark won't shop on a Christmas Eve Sunday. I also like going to church on Christmas Eve. Mark's aunts and cousins were there, and we all had Sunday dinner at MaDeah's house. The next morning Rewa got up and opened her presents by herself and then Mark and I opened our gifts with Mama Arcola. Everyone came over for the traditional pork shoulder with biscuits, rice, and hot sauce breakfast they have every Christmas morning. Then we watched X Men on video with Terrance, who has actually read the comix so he was chock full of info. That night we went to Arcola's old family house where she grew up and had the turkey and dressing, ham, greens and sweet potato pie. I couldn't remember anybody's name or keep up with the conversations but we still had a great time. I think I picked up a lot of southern expressions that trip.
Alabama Christmas 2005 was also pretty good. We instigated a Christmas Pageant that year, and Kel, Rewa's son, participated. Mark and I did stockings for everyone, which was really fun to plan. The next day, we asked the family if we could open presents together and we were so busy watching the kids get into their Santa gifts and setting up the 4 video cameras that we didn't finish opening presents until 4 pm! Mark's parents got new carpet 2 days later, which was a lot of work, and then we all went to Panama City, Florida for a few days and stayed in a nice condo on the beach. It was a great break from the Boston winter we were about to return to.
My favorite Christmas in UT was probably last year... or Christmas 2004. Both Christmases I was expecting a new baby boy in the next month, so I was huge and uncomfortable, but it was good to see so many members of my family. We did a lot of family get-togethers last year, which was so nice because we got to be with everybody so much of the time. The children always have a great time with their cousins. The only lament is that Craig & Holly and Kurt & Alice were gone last year. The girls' reaction over their gifts in 2004 was awesome and Matthew's over his tools was great last year.
On Christmas Eve, the Hansens have their traditional turkey dinner, followed by the kids' production of the Nativity. It's not terribly reverent, but always entertaining and rather a huge production with so many kids. Then we sing Christmas songs for hours, hang up stockings, and the water game ensues. Water UNO is a tradition from Craig's mission- it starts out a huge game with a monster deck. We play "SuperUNO," meaning that you pile on Draw 4's, pass your cards to your neighbor when a zero is played, etc etc. Losers drink a huge -huge!- cupful of water. You're out of the game when you excuse yourself to the bathroom. (Yes, this sounds like a game from elders... ) Mom and Dad play the Messiah into the night and the Santas get a few precious hours of sleep before we dress up and line up to go see stockings and then presents under the tree. Dad hands out the gifts one by one in an agonizingly slow fashion until the room resembles a packing peanuts factory (one year I gave Tyler an incredibly fragile electric blanket) and we laze around and read comic books from the stockings for the rest of the day. Lunch is leftovers from the night before and it's a nice lazy day playing with toys, games, and the movies. And eating candy.
So there you have it, almost like it was straight from the Ghost of Christmases Past. We are going to Alabama this year, but since we're driving, we get to leave when we want and hopefully it will ease the stress somewhat on packing gifts. Better than last year, when the suitcase of presents got left at home and I called my heroic neighbor in a panic. She sped it to the airport and then the nice guys at Security did not throw a fit about the large bottles of cologne going through the belt. I think they were afraid to mess with a stressed pregnant lady. Very wise.
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5 comments:
I wish this year were a Utah year for you guys... but then again since every year is a Utah year for us we ought to make sure that on the every other we get together!
You neglected to mention that the water game is dead. Last year's showing was pathetic.
I'm glad that you mentioned HOW SLOW the entire present-opening process goes. I was always jealous of everybody else who got to open their presents at the same time. No fair!
Pregnant women would be at a severe disadvantage in that water UNO game. Nursing mothers, however, would be hard to beat.
There is no motivation for nursing mothers to stay up until all hours of the night to play Water Uno just to win. I, for one, have never played it since the tradition didn't start until I was well into parenthood and regretted every late night I ever had. By the way, JoEllen, you're an amazing blogger for how busy you must be.
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