Blessed

Christmas, to me, is definitely a time for families and big get togethers. All my life, every Christmas, we would all get together (I'm talking grandma and grandpa, aunts, uncles, cousins) and have a large sit down dinner, followed by a Chinese gift exchange and, of course, Christmas carols.

We have clung to these traditions even now, more than 25 years later..and it only gets better!

Today was our Petrick family Christmas party and it honestly warmed my heart to be sitting in the same room with all my family, even cousins from out of town come in for this day to sit together, talk, laugh, catch up on our lives and share a few Christmas carols...

Most of my cousins have started families of their own now and although its crazy to have 6-7 additonal kids running around with all of us, it just makes the home and the holidays that much more cozy, you know? We got together for a big luncheon, opened some presents, sang some carols and just sat around talking. It made me so happy I wanted to cry!

Now, don't get me wrong..my family is NOT perfect! In fact, we are the Griswalds! (Have you seen Christmas Vacation? Yup, thats us) We're perfectly imperfect and we love each other very much. We lost Grandma and Grandpa in 1997 & 1998 and we miss them dearly, but they would be so proud to see us now and see how far we've all come!

The icing on the cake? 10 years ago we wrote down on a piece of paper our age, the date and what was happening in our lives..and today we opened that box and it made us laugh and it made us cry..gosh how off we all were in our guesses for the future!! Then, we sat down and wrote another one which will be opened in 10 years from now..I can only imagine what life will be like then!!

So with that..I'll leave you with a parting shot of my dear cousin, her daughter and my aunty..rocking the Christmas carols...have a very happy Sunday everyone...