Merry Christmas Reunion

In the past year,

all my sisters and their families

have moved much closer to each other,

so, we decided to get together one weekend

before Christmas and have a Merry Christmas Reunion!

Our Festive Weekend Looked Like this:

Operation: Fill the Bag

We made sack lunches and filled them with goodies

and took them to the homeless. 

They were gone in a Flash

to very Thankful people.

We made cutout snowflakes

and went to a little nursing home,

and sang songs 

and shared our snowflakes with the residents.

They must have been really desperate from some

Christmas Entertainment,

because they then escorted us to a different

wing of the care home,

and asked us to sing again.

We did, gladly.

We All sang- Grandma, Grandpa,

Aunts, Uncles, Cousins-

all of us,

from the oldest to the youngest.

Which is good,

because sometimes

I had such a lump in my throat,

I couldn't get any words out,

and as I looked at the faces of my sisters,

and saw tears running down their cheeks,

I knew they felt the same way.

Our group was far from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir,

but to see the faces of the residents as we sang to them

and as they loved seeing the kids,

and how grateful they were,

it was just so touching.

One Senior Lady,

started singing with us,

and lead us in parts of singing we hadn't 

practiced, but we followed right along, 

without missing a beat!-

(That was probably the funniest and best part ever!)

They encored us,

and we finished with a most rousing version

of Jingle Bells!

Truly Tears in everyone's eyes at the end of that!

Probably the BEST Part of the whole weekend, right there.

When we got back to the house,

We had a Cousins Gift Exchange, 

Cookie Decorating

 And Later in the Evening,

a trip to Temple Square to see the Lights

To finish the day,

We had a Christmas Buffet

that we all worked to put together,

and filled the whole kitchen with 

Festive Food Galore!

And as the kids all settled in to sleep,

Grandma told Christmas stories,

and stories from her Family History.

It was a Wonderful, Wonderful Weekend!

Definitely a Tradition to start Rolling! 

We LOVED having Everyone here!