Christmas

My first Christmas present was opened early. Dwayne couldn't wait for me to open my gift from him so before we left for the Family Christmas party, I opened one of my gifts from him.


Once I opened it and had it in my hands I could see why he wanted me to have it early. It was a new camera that I had been looking at all year long!


I had been wanting a new camera for a long time, one that would take amazing pictures. Well, now I have it, complete with tons of accessories, but now I need to learn how to work it!

Halo gets his own little corner at Christmas. Next to his bed is set up a Christmas tree complete with his own special ornaments and angel. On the wall above his bed hangs his stocking. Under his tree are the presents he gets others and the presents that are for him. He looks so handsome in his Christmas tie!

We changed up our Christmas routine this year. Work schedules were different, we kids are all grown up so it was time to try something new. For the past few years we have gone to the Mid-night Mass on Christmas Eve, and then did dinner followed by gift exchange on Christmas day.

This year, we did our dinner on Christmas Eve. Both Dwayne and I had Christmas eve off, but I had to work Christmas night. So, we all got together for dinner on Christmas Eve. It was nice, laid back, and delicious!

Dwayne and I had started a tradition between the two of us of giving each other Christmas pajamas.

We give each other wrapped pajamas on Christmas Eve and it is our one present to open. This year not only did I get new pajama pants, but also a very cozy robe!

After we spent the morning at mass as a family, we came back to our house and exchanged gifts. Halo went first and had fun opening his presents.

Dwayne handed out the presents to everyone from under our tree

Mellie stationed herself atop the couch

My brother was there too to open his gifts

I hung out by Halo's corner

This is Dwayne getting ready to open his big gift from me

It was a surround sound system, his number one wish

Mom and John sat down around the tree with us too to open gifts

Dwayne got push up handles too, so he was doing a demo for us

Dwayne also got a new bed set from his parents for Christmas for the Cowboys room.

It was a very nice Christmas. We were able to slow down, enjoy it, and spend time with the family. Going to mass Christmas morning as a family was the highlight of the Holiday for us. We hope your Christmas was as wonderful as ours was!

Show and Family Christmas Party

Over the years, the annual Family Christmas party has rotated through various family member's homes. This year, my Uncle Shane hosted the party.


He also puts on a yearly Christmas rock show to raise food for an organization in the town where he lives. So we loaded up the "sleigh" with our presents, food, family, and Christmas spirit and headed out to his town.

The show takes fun rock songs and blends them in and with traditional Christmas music, sometimes creating non-traditional Christmas music that for us, has actually become traditional.

It has kind of become a family show too in a sense.

There is quite a bit of musical talent in our family and often, the various musical family members perform numbers in the show.

Above, my uncle Shane plays lead guitar in the front, and in the middle, is my uncle Jim, playing I believe bass guitar.

The family gets together and sits throughout the audience enjoying the music. Here are auntie Robyn and Mellie

My cousin Sylvia lends her vocal talents and performs numerous songs.

She combines with other singers and my uncle to do some songs too.

This year my other cousin Olowan got on stage and sang a song too.

The crowd visiting after the show was over

This was the first time John has seen my family perform. I think he enjoyed it!

After the show, we went back to my uncle Shane's house for the Annual Family Christmas party. Everyone came this year I believe. Above is the youngest of the grandchildren, Marisa.

This is Angelina. Such a pretty little girl!

Here are my cousins Jimmy, Angelina and Olowan playing with Halo. He was pretty popular at the party this year!

Here in the back room playing video games are my cousins Angelina and on the left, my cousin Jordan.

We spend time visiting, catching up, munching on delicious food and eventually, we pass around presents for everyone.

So, here I am starting off the present passing!

Everyone passes out their presents for each other and we dig in!

It is always fun to see what everyone gets

This year, a lot of the boys got some fun sleep shorts/boxers. So, for our viewing pleasure they modeled their pants!

From left to right: My cousin Wanblee Ska, cousin Matt Jr, cousin David and Dwayne

They gave us our second round of entertainment for the evening!

It was a good laugh that was for sure. Thanks guys!

The Macie Family, Dwayne, Tiffy and Halo in front of uncle Shane's tree

Uncle Shane and Me

There was even dancing! Mellie and Uncle Shane tango!

It was a fun but late night. Until next year.....Merry Christmas Family!

Christmas Double Date Night

For the past few years we have had an annual friends Christmas party where we get together, eat, play games and have an ornament exchange.


Well this year, everyone was particularly busy doing their own things so the four of us, Dan, Erin, Dwayne and I, got together for a group date.


We started with our gift exchange over dinner at Applebee's. Yummy!


Then it was time to take it back to when we were kids. We drove over to the Grand Sierra Resort and hit up the arcade.

We had tons of tokens and just had fun playing all the different games.

Erin and Dwayne played Dance, Dance Revolution (Erin won) while Dan and I looked on.

Erin and I played a game where we had to shoot dinosaurs. This was our "we are dinosaur hunters" look.

Dwayne took a turn at seeing how many points he could earn throwing a football.

I played my all time favorite arcade game: Ski Ball!

After we were all done with our tokens we counted the tickets we had earned and turned them in for prizes. Much to our happiness, you could redeem some of the tickets for Christmas ornaments! So, even though we didn't do the ornament exchange this year, we each got an ornament anyway to put on our trees! Perfect!

Once we had our prizes it was time for some laser tag. We rented a locker to keep track of all of our stuff and then waited until it was time for us to enter the arena.

It is so much fun to run around shooting a laser at people while earning points!

Dwayne was very sneaky, creeping around the corners and such.

Erin and I never shoot each other, instead we try and gang up on the boys. Sometimes it is difficult but we try! Somehow, they always do better than we do.

See? The boys take it so seriously! We had a really good time though. Sometimes you just have to let your inner child loose and have fun! What a better way to do it than on a double date with your best friends?

After running around the arcade and laser tag we went for hot chocolate, turned up the Christmas music and drove around looking at Christmas lights. It was a great double date night!