Christmas

Wow!! Where did 2015 go... seriously?! I cannot believe we're already here, post-Christmas. I feel like this year has been a blur. Anyone feel that?

Eric and I did the drive to FL for Christmas again this year. We've take to enjoy that drive time, making it all part of the journey to enjoy. Mostly. We drove straight through to Jacksonville on Christmas Eve, and woke up to head to my parents on Christmas morning. My sister and her family couldn't make it up that way until that evening, so it worked out fine. Having the youngest in the family being teenagers, the 'magic' of Christmas morning isn't as much of a necessity. It happens, I suppose. But that gave some time with just Eric and I to spend with my parents. Nan was not able to make it down this year and spent Christmas with some extended family in PA. We missed her a lot, and hope we can get her back to FL for future Christmases. We'll see.

Christmas, itself, was pretty standard for a Cwalina Christmas. Lots of gifts with the nine of us there, and some fun surprises that no one expected. Still extremely enjoyable, for me at least. I love how our family does Christmas. I wouldn't say we have formal traditions, but there are still traditions. Like where we sit, for example. Don't ask me why, but if anyone tries to sit someplace new, there's confusion everywhere! It's kind of amusing. Regardless, I love watching reactions to the gifts - no mater how old we get, we all seem to enjoy it.

The day after Christmas, to avoid the draw of the TV and being lazy, we went to the zoo. This was my mom's idea, because she wanted to see the new tigers. Which I definitely liked the idea of, too! Here's the crazy thing, though... it was in the 80's and almost too warm to walk around the zoo! A lot of the animals were even seeking shade to keep cool! Even the tigers! We still had a good time feeding the Lorikeets and walking around, though. And I learned that Eric is afraid of (or 'doesn't like' them, in his words) birds, reptiles, and amphibians... he wouldn't go into any of those exhibits. It was kind of funny. But we managed to walk through and see what we wanted before they closed, and headed home.

After breakfast, Eric and I left the next day. We only went as far as Savannah, and enjoyed the afternoon and some dinner there. Wasn't a major event, or anything... just meant to be some down time to ourselves before getting back to the real world after the holidays. It was kind of nice, actually, and thought maybe we should get back to making the trip down a two-day trip, as well, just to keep our sanity in check. I guess we'll see next year.

Finally, we left bright and early the next morning. Only had a band of rain to drive through, though it was some heavy rain. But it was still relatively warm until we gut way up into Kentucky. And at that point, we were done with stops and just needed to get home. So all in all, it was a good trip. And a good Christmas.