Dad turned eighty this year (happy birthday, Dad!). So we all went out to Missouri for a family celebration. Unfortunately none of us actually remembered to take some pictures of his party! Ugh.
During the few days we were there, we also had some adventures and celebrated an early Christmas together. We visited historic downtown St Charles, walking along Main Street and dropping in on a few shops.
I couldn’t resist posing with this beautiful work of art along the street.
Back at the house, we all gathered to open our Christmas gifts to one another.
It was great to all be together again– it’s been a while since that last happened. Afterward, Pepper and I flew to Salt Lake City to spend a second Christmas with our kids. Alex was spending the holiday with his in-laws (it was their “turn” this year) but we had a grand time with Kyra and Zack. Kyra had the most gifts of anyone:
I picked up a tree on sale at Lowe’s. It was pre-lit (awesome) but we didn’t get any decorations for it. Luckily Sefton made tree ornaments for everyone in the family, so our tree literally had a single ornament on it.
Beneath the plastic pine needles, we stacked the handful of gifts, and I took an artistic shot of them:
One of the gifts we opened was a box of chocolates that was, without doubt, the fanciest box of chocolates I’ve ever seen.
Full disclosure: the box was actually addressed to the former owners of our townhome. But it’s been almost a year since we bought it, and we have no way to get in touch with them to tell them to come pick up a mysterious FedEx box. So we decided to just open it and enjoy whatever was inside. It had been sent by an investment firm, so I’m guessing it was just a “thanks for being our customer” sort of gift and they’ll never miss it. But Brayden, if you’re reading this post, drop me a line and I’ll try to make it up to you.
Of course there were tons of board games on the docket. Here we’re playing Codenames, which is a blast. Pepper has traditionally hated the game, but she seemed to be having a good time with us.
It was great to have two Christmases with our two families, and the time seemed to slip by too quickly. Merry Christmas, everyone.