Christensen Thanksgiving/Christmas Holiday Extravaganza

Brit's family had a holiday tradition going long before I joined on as a Christensen, and that's to get the whole family together every other holiday- Thanksgiving on even years, Christmas on odd years. This works out with my career, seeing as how I have to work every other holiday anyway. I'm a little sad that I never get to see my family for thanksgiving or christmas, but seeing the in-laws is still TONS of fun.

This year was a Thanksgiving year, and we've started combining it with Christmas and getting it all done in one weekend. So me and Brit loaded up the car and headed out on Tuesday to spend more than a week in a house with 8 adults and 6 kids. It was cozy.

Thursday night was the traditional Thanksgiving dinner, full of good food, lists of things we are thankful for, and yams that immediately clogged the arteries.

Brit and I were in charge of mashing the potatoes. There was a failure in communication somewhere down the line, and nobody told us the 20lb bag of potatoes was supposed to be HALF for mashing, half for baking later that weekend. So we had a lot of mashed potatoes, and poor Brit had a potato-peeling workout.

Friday we had Christmas Eve, set up the Christmas decorations all over the house, and took a lot of family pictures. We try to do this every year we get together. Brit's family is very lucky to be all together so often... I'm pretty sure the last time we got a family picture on my side was in 2006.

Saturday we had Christmas, and the feeling was so total and authentic, several people thought stores would be closed on Saturday. We totally forgot it wasn't REALLY Christmas! The celebration was fantastic, even with so many little kids around. I've decided that Christmas is very hard on little kids... watching your cousins open gifts and get new things while you have to wait around five whole minutes for your turn. Pure torture. Corbin did pretty well, although he had to go down for a nap partway through. I think his biggest present (in my mind, anyway) is the blanket I made for him.

He LOVED IT! He actually smiled when he felt it! And now it's by his side for every nap time. I definitely was not expecting such a "strong" reaction (for a 6 month old, anyway).

The rest of the week involved a lot of Settlers of Catan for Brit and his brothers, and a lot of learning Photoshop for me. Corbin did pretty well, once we figured out that he can't handle too much chaos (is anyone surprised?) and needs a chance to wind down before his naps.

I was REALLY sad to have to come back to Utah, and not ready at all to leave. I'm so lucky to have such wonderful in-laws that they feel like my own family.

Pictures taken by my talented sister-in-law, Heather.