Over the river(s) and thru the woods...

Every year we get together with some good friends we made when we lived back in Idaho during the early years of our marriage.  They still live in Idaho, so we head over (weather permitting) for a weekend each December to celebrate Christmas together.  It's a tradition that began when we were all young, newlywed students living away from family.  We would spend each holiday together and began several traditions while making many wonderful, fun, and often funny memories.

Last weekend was our annual Christmas weekend get together.  As always, we had a lot of fun!  And added so many more memories and stories to our growing collection.

Saturday is the party day.  We have a huge dinner, a fun gift exchange (pass the present), get a visit from a certain jolly man, and play games.  On Sunday, we tone it down a little, we still have a big dinner, have our real gift exchange, and usually act out the Nativity while Steve reads from Luke 2.  (This year, the nativity scene didn't quite happen.)

Here are a few photos...

Santa always brings every child a little gift.  (There are TWELVE kids in our group - plus this year, we had some other friends join us for Saturday night and that made SEVENTEEN KIDS!!!)  This year, Santa also brought something for the parents as well!  We all got a baggie of candy and an LED flashlight.  Oh, and of course a candy cane. :)  It must be hard to think of something for everyone in a group our size and with varying ages and interests, but I think everyone liked their gift from Santa this year - Thanks, big guy!



The girls showing what they got from their Pass-the-Present exchange:



Just some of the crazy people we choose to spend our time with:



I wish I had taken more photos, but as I've mentioned before, I've just been underwhelmed with my camera.  I think Ryan took half of the pictures we did get this time.  Thank you, Babe!