Santa Party

Today Holidailies prompt is to tell of our favorite holiday tradition.

I come from a large family.  There were 6 of us children.  I had 4 older brothers and one younger sister.  I lost one of my brothers last year on December 11th, but he will always be with us in our hearts and memories.  We are a close family and as our kids were growing up (24 of them, in all) we were together nearly every weekend.  We would gather at the folks house and play poker while my sister, who was closer to the grandkids ages than our ages would corral up all the kids and mother them to death.

As our family got larger and our children started families of their own it became harder and harder to get everyone together at one time, especially during the holidays.  With divorces and remarriages and children needing to be 10 places in the two days of Christmas celebrations I found that I often did not get to see all the great grandkids (15 of them now) during the Christmas season.

This was very unacceptable to me so I decided to fix it.  I started having Breakfast with Santa about 10 yrs ago.  I chose a Sunday a couple of weeks before Christmas and had all the parents bring the great grandkids to the house to decorate cookies, meet Santa, have breakfast and open gifts.  It was a great success.  Through the years it has evolved to include Mom's birthday celebration and is now held in the afternoon instead of the morning but it is still a great opportunity for us to spend time with all the little one's without their parents trying to squeeze one more visit into a jam packed week.

This is my favorite Holiday tradition.....because, after all, Christmas is for kids......

 

This is Santa with my grandniece on her first Christmas

We just celebrated her 3rd Birthday last week.

 

 

Hugs for Santa

 

Santa Love

 

Thank you Santa!!

 

Who is this guy who has me??

 

 

Group Shot.