Family Party 2010

My mom began having us out for Christmas Eve...years ago. I can't remember exactly the year? Jill was a baby. Anyway. All 5 of us siblings and our kids would go to the parents house, eat dinner, my dad would dress up in a Santa suit that my mom made, and give out the presents from them. We usually got Grandma Tussey for Christmas too, so she would be there. The year mom died, determined in our paralyzing grief to carry on the tradition, my oldest brother had us all out to his house for the party. We brought our own Santa gift for our kids, and so began a new era of the Christmas Eve Party. He and his fabulous wife have hosted us for 12 years in a row now.
Somewhere along the line, it became a tradition for the last Santa Sitting to occur the year you graduate high school. If you're over 18, you won't be sitting on the big guys lap. So we only had 2 kids to gift this year. Ryan's Santa gift: a cookbook.
Grace's Santa gift: Club Penguin swag.
Tyler singing his annual rendition of a song that he makes up...he changes lyrics to reflect what is going on in each family's life that year...this year's version was fabulous.
Our annual game of air hockey. I lose EVERY year. I did give him a run for his money for the first 10 minutes or so.....then crashed and burned. Good times!
I love my family. As we get older, and the kids get older, and some us have moved out of Utah, or may be moving out of Utah, it's possible that this tradition may morph again. Maybe to a different day, or a different place. But I think we'll always get together, visit, and honor our parents by continuing to weave the fabric of our family.