Christmas 2008

Wow! It is hard to believe that Christmas has come and gone! It seems we spend so much time preparing for the big day and then it is over in such a hurry! We have had a great Christmas Season in the Allred house and I hope yours was great too! Here is a recap of all the fun we've had since getting out of school for Christmas Break!

• Playtime outside with Dad......
• Making Christmas goodies together
• Spending time with the Great-Grands and Poppa and Gan and Aunt Brooke in Gaffney
• Going to talk to Santa
• Christmas Eve Services at Church
• Opening that one special gift on Christmas Eve (although Ryan and I have discussed that Alex doesn't think our tradition of Christmas pajamas on Christmas Eve is that special anymore.....I am going to have to add to that special Christmas Eve gift next year!!! Otherwise, Alex is going to start planning a revolt!)
• SANTA came and brought loads of toys and goodies!
• Christmas with Gan and Poppa and Aunt Brooke
• Trips to Gaffney for extended-family Christmas
• Going to Jacksonville, FL for Christmas with the Allred family. Alex and Emily were very excited to have play time with cousins, Jason and Jessica!
• Back home from FL to have some play time with all the new Christmas toys!
• Undecorating the house....actually, I think my statement to Ryan yesterday was that "we need to set off a bomb in this house. That is the only way we are going to get it all clean."
• Cleaning out old stuff to make room for new stuff. Putting away all the new stuff, to find in a matter of seconds that one unnamed 5 year old and one unnamed 2 year old have pulled it all back out again.
• Clean some more....clean some more....clean some more!
• Watching lots of college football on TV. Sadly, our Clemson Tigers did not pull out a win against the Cornhuskers of Nebraska in the Gator Bowl
• Enjoying time together as a family!

WHEW! I think that is everything. For me, the most important part of this Christmas Season has been to enjoy the time with family! I don't have a ton of great pictures from our Christmas this year. But honestly, I'm okay with that because the pictures are the memories we have made together. I do have a few pics from the past 2 weeks and I will upload those in the next post!

I hope you and your family have had a great Christmas together! Now....on to 2009!