Merry Christmas!

Howdy! I have to say that because we are spending Christmas in Texas with my family. Here's how we celebrated!

Christmas Eve
Since it didn't make much sense to pack our presents, open them, and then bring them back with us, Andy and I decided to open our presents to each other a day early. As you can see, I had a beauty Christmas and he had a Jacque Pepin Christmas!

Andy then treated me to a pancake breakfast. You'll notice he is sporting one of his new gifts.

We packed and then took off for his parent's house. We were able to go out to lunch with Andy's mom and dad, and then back to their house to exchange gifts... even Bailey had something to unwrap. Even though we could only stay for a few hours, it was really nice to spend time with them.

Our flight left around 6:00pm and we had our layover in Atlanta. My family's Christmas Eve tradition is to have KFC for dinner. Thankfully Andy knew where we could get some fried chicken in the Atlanta airport. I will say... it was really good.

We got into DFW pretty late and more or less fell into bed. Which is good... we needed to get to bed so Santa could come!

Christmas Day
Somehow Santa managed to get into my parents' hotel room last night to hang the stockings with care. ;-)

My mom did an excellent job of decorating thier hotel room to make it feel special and festive. She even created a Christmas tree!

We headed over to my Mema's house for breakfast. Her house was nicely decorated too with decorations new and old... some of her decorations were her family's, including a manger scene from the 19-teens.

After breakfast we opened presents. Andy and I gave Mema an album full of our wedding pictures. It was fun to watch her look through them all.

A little later it was time to work on lunch/dinner. My mom and I helped Mema make the deviled eggs. Andy pitched in sharpening knives and even carving the ham. I really enjoyed the food. Both the breakfast and main meal had some Taylor family favorites that I haven't had in a long time.

After we ate, Andy, my dad, and I threw a football around in the backyard. It was really fun, but I learned I am teeeeeerrible at catching a football. I'm not so hot throwing one either.

Back inside, things were starting to get silly.

After multiple attempts to get a successful family photo, we played games inspired by Minute To Win It. They were really fun and a lot harder to do than they looked.

After several tries I was finally able to complete one of the challenges in a minute. Go me!

And no trip to Mema's would be complete without some sort of musical element. Out came my Papaw's first horn, and a random metal oboe that was kicking around. Surprise of the year - I wasn't too bad at the horn! Andy on the other hand... haha, well.... he had a good time trying.

So there you have it! A Texas Christmas in the books. I think I was in the sixth grade the last time I spent a Christmas with my family in Texas. I'm really glad I had the opportunity to spend another Christmas with my Mema. :-)

It's been a long day so I'm off to bed. Hope you all had a wonderful day!