Christmas before Christmas!

This year my parents are traveling to Atlanta for Christmas to visit my Sister, Brother in law and Luisa - most of you know they are in the process of adopting her from Columbia and she is visiting for the holidays. Since they will be gone, we celebrated Christmas early with them on Saturday! I have to admit, even though it was early, it was wonderful! Christmas is SUCH a hectic holiday for us. It was nice not to already be wiped out from the marathon Christmas usually is! Of course even though it was a week early, Redondo Beach Santa still stopped by the house before we got there. Darby was spoiled of course, by Santa AND her Cookie Grammy and Surfer Dude Grandpa.

Christmas definitely wont feel the same this year. It will be the first Christmas I will spend without seeing my parents, and Darby's first without seeing her Cookie Grammy and Surfer Dude Grandpa (even though she only has one under her belt and I have 28, we are in the same boat!) I will miss my Sister and Brother in Law, and Brother and Sister in law, and my 3 silly nephews. It is hard being so spread out from one end of the country to the other.

On the other hand, even though Christmas will be missing my immediate family (which is sad, no way around it!), I am so lucky to have married into a wonderful family and extended family, who all live close by. So Christmas will still be filled with family, and that is the important part!

Thank you Mom and Dad (and Santa!) for the great Christmas before Christmas! We will miss you!