What we did New Year's Eve

Well, as embarrassing as it is to admit it, J and I are like an old married couple. We don't really do much celebrating on holidays. We are homebodies and will typically choose to enjoy each other's company at home. We both HATE to make small talk with people.

Our Christmas holidays are always spent doing a lot of traveling. We have three sets of parents between the two of us, and they all live at least 45 minutes away from each other, and 4 hours away from us.

Fortunately, J has been able to take vacation at Christmas for the last seven years. He tries to save vacation for this time of year, and he takes off as much of my break as he can. This year he was able to even take three days more than I was! It's been really convenient for him to have the same break as me, because we really do a lot of driving.

This year we started our break in Ridgefield where his folks live. We got there the Thursday before Christmas, and stayed until Christmas morning. While we were there, I got to see the Nutcracker with my MIL and SILs. We had the second annual Hocking family gingerbread house build off (by the way, I STILL don't know who won that...and I still don't have pictures...apparently they will be mailed to me soon - I'll do a post about the contest as soon as I get the pictures and results). We played pool on the new pool table in the barn, and we had a poker party on Christmas Eve in the barn. Christmas morning we opened presents out in the barn, and then J and I hit the road.

Two and a half hours later we were in Federal Way in time for dinner. We had Christmas dinner with my mom and about a million other people (my sister T's best friend Taryn, Taryn's girlfriend Erin, Erin's sister Kristin, T's friend Erika, T's friend Kara, Kara's mom, dad, brother and sister, Mom's brother Paul and his wife, Great Aunt Bea, and Great Aunt Diane...I think that was everyone...), and then we opened presents that evening. That's a tradition we started about five or six years ago, and I love it. It used to be so stressful trying to get from house to house in order to open gifts, and people were always cranky. Mom decided that we would do it Christmas night and avoid the stress before dinner. Beautiful.

On the 26th J and I traveled to Seattle to celebrate with my dad and step-mom. Dad was working, so J and I ran some errands with Mel. She was doing stuff for the house remodel they're doing on my dad's house. It was pretty cool to see all the changes they've made. I'm excited to see it all done. Anyway, Dad came home and made soup, and then we exchanged gifts. Dad had to work early the next day, so J and I were back on the road to Federal Way by 8:30p.m.

We hung out at my mom's house until New Year's Eve, and then decided to come home. Mom really wanted us to stay one more night, but I really like to have time to relax and put stuff away at home before I have to go back to work. I hate being stressed and rushed. So we left around 3pm on New Year's Eve. We stopped at the grocery store when we got back to Kennewick, and I ran in to buy our celebration feast.

For the last four years, we've just bought a bunch of hors d'oeuvres and put them on fancy platters. This year was no different. We finally got home around 7:30. We unloaded the truck, I unpacked our clothes, and threw in a load of wash. We got new silverware and new tupperware from my dad and step-mom for Christmas, so I did a load of dishes, too. Around 10p.m. we put in the movie "The Princess Bride" because I've never seen it. That's about as exciting as it got. Not terribly exciting, but fun.

I think when we have kids we'll keep the same tradition, but throw in some games, too.