Our Christmas 2011, Continued

After our morning at home and at my parents’ house, we headed to my aunt Susan and uncle Paul’s house to celebrate with my mom’s side of the family.

We did our gift exchange a little different this year…

Instead of all the women bringing a woman’s gift and all the men bringing a man’s gift and the kid’s drawing names, we all drew names so we had one specific person to buy for (except Summer and Camryn, they got stuff from a few people!)

My cousin Andi had me. She got me a really pretty hand-made scarf and coffee mug. Totally perfect gift. My uncle Paul had Joe. He got a Target gift card (to be used for yet another video game), and two of his favorite things – dark chocolate and pistachios. The girls got some fun presents, including the Pop the Pig game from my aunt Billie and uncle David that they had been dying to have. They were so excited about that!

We took a few group pictures outside. It’s fun to compare them from year to year. Here is the 2011 Holmes cousins (plus husband) picture. Left to right, it’s Andi, Nathan, Libby, Wesley, Summer, Me, Camryn, Joe, Katherine, and Richard. Joe and Wes are most likely standing on their tip toes in this picture because they are incapable of being serious.

Our Christmas wouldn’t be complete without a karaoke session in the basement…

Yes, we go all out with instruments and everything!

We had to leave to go to Joe’s dad’s house, but not before I got my aunt Ann and uncle Mark to sign “All the Single Ladies”. It was an amazing disaster… they are such good sports.

It was after dinner time before we got to Joe’s dad’s, but we were glad we got to spend some time on Christmas with him, Joe’s Grandma, his sister Nicole, her boyfriend Joey, and our nephew Xavier.

As usual, the kids were spoiled with awesome gifts.

It was a really long, hectic day, but it went perfectly and the four of us all agreed it was a great Christmas. It’s hard to believe it was our last Christmas as a family of four. I can’t wait to see what is in store next year!