This year my family got together twice over the holidays! The first time was on Christmas eve as is our tradition, but Jen and Chris could not make it because they were visiting Chris’s family. Alissa and I came home, we all went to the Southridge Christmas eve service, and had our classic dinner of appetisers afterwards. We decided to open gifts without Jen because if you snooze you lose! The best gift was a handheld massager that Al and Dad gave mom. We all decided it looked like ET! Another highlight was that Alissa wrapped Dad’s gift entirely in red and green Canadian Tire money! It was a set of really nice shirts. That evening I introduced the others to Wizard, a game that Jen gave to my parents years ago but for some reason we didn’t get past a single round. This time we played through and discovered how fun and frustrating it is! A fun moment was trying to get Foxy to sit still for a photo with Dad and Al…. let’s just say we didn’t have much luck…
Our next gathering was even more fun! On the 30th we met up and shared yet another delicious meal of appetisers! We played more games of Wizard and Al taught us a new game similar to Sorry but with more strategy. One of the funniest moments was when Chris started flying a mini quadrocopter he had received from his brother for Christmas that was the size of a fist. Foxy didn’t know how to handle it and was freaked out; it was so funny to watch! Another funny moment happened when Jen sat on the ground to pet Foxy and somehow it turned into a photoshoot of all of the crazy ladies in our family, with the exception of Foxy who seemed to be the only sane one. Everyone stayed late and slept over that one night so that we could stay up until the early morning.
The next day I worked with my dad on some shelves for my apartment and then I borrowed the van to go the Devos’ house to celebrate New Years. As always there were a lot of people I didn’t know, but we still had a marvellous time chatting, playing games, and welcoming the new year together. This was my fifth or sixth time celebrating New Years with the Devos family and I am always amazed by their gift of bringing people together and making strangers into fast friends. This was a third fam-jam because they are like family to me and it was wonderful to see them all again. My holiday this year was very restful, memorable, and full of love!
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