Christmas 2024 -- thoughts

[Houndoc]

A very different Christmas for us this year- did not see any of my kids or grandkids on Christmas Eve (just my wife and I eating out) or Christmas Day (my parents came over for dinner)

But the week before we had my oldest daughter, her husband and 2 kids with us for 8 days (they live in Pullman, WA) and the other kids (both married, one with two kids and a dog) spent 4 of those day at our house, including staying overnight even though all live within 45 minutes of us.
Had a blast that week.

We made a plan to have all the kids spend the same Christmas with the in-laws so we get all of them together on 'our year'.

 

[DAA]

We have to deal with the "our year" thing too. Usually, but not always and not this year, we just do Christmas two days in a row to get around it. Wasn't feasible this year though.

- DAA

 

[Pike2350]

Well the dumpster was a big success. Came home from work and this is how high it was filled. Thanks again @jeeper

 

[UNSTUCK]

I just figured the FIL saw an impressive display at Costco/Sam’s 🤣

I guess my FIL saw the same thing as we got two blankets as well. 😂

Other than that and the jeep it was a very typical Christmas for us. One of us always gets sick and this year Mary drew the short straw. She was out of bed long enough to open presents then right back in. This morning we cleaned up where we were staying and drove home a day early. My neighbor put the new jeep in our driveway and had that ready for us. It was super cool. What a fun surprise for her. Too bad she was too sick to really enjoy it.

 

[Gravy]

We had a fun Christmas. We've never been able to get all of my wife's family together for Christmas because they live kind of all over the place and aren't always in a financial position to travel. So this year my wife and I rented an Airbnb in Bear lake that could sleep 40 -for 4 days.
Pretty fun house it had a slide from the top floor down to the bottom floor and a pirate themed bunk room that could sleep 13 kids, a theater, a game room with pool and foosball.

We told everybody what the costs split would be and then asked each family to only pay whatever they could afford. We asked each family to plan food for 2 meals and everything else was planned and coordinated so they didn't have to. We had all 37 family members show up!
Just my family arrived early on Christmas Eve and we had a quiet Christmas morning together before everyone showed up Christmas Day.
It was kind of hectic but the home was big enough that everybody could find their own space anytime they needed it.
I brought 8 sleds and tubes and took everyone up to the canyon to sled.

No kids got in any significant arguments, which was a miracle. Only one kid got sick for a day from eating too much candy and only one person got yelled at and flipped off 😂 So we'll count that as a great success. 🤣🤣🤣

 

[Tonkaman]

We had a fun Christmas. We've never been able to get all of my wife's family together for Christmas because they live kind of all over the place and aren't always in a financial position to travel. So this year my wife and I rented an Airbnb in Bear lake that could sleep 40 -for 4 days.
Pretty fun house it had a slide from the top floor down to the bottom floor and a pirate themed bunk room that could sleep 13 kids, a theater, a game room with pool and foosball.

We told everybody what the costs split would be and then asked each family to only pay whatever they could afford. We asked each family to plan food for 2 meals and everything else was planned and coordinated so they didn't have to. We had all 37 family members show up!
Just my family arrived early on Christmas Eve and we had a quiet Christmas morning together before everyone showed up Christmas Day.
It was kind of hectic but the home was big enough that everybody could find their own space anytime they needed it.
I brought 8 sleds and tubes and took everyone up to the canyon to sled.

No kids got in any significant arguments, which was a miracle. Only one kid got sick for a day from eating too much candy and only one person got yelled at and flipped off 😂 So we'll count that as a great success. 🤣🤣🤣

Wow that’s an awesome idea. It must have felt great to be in a position to provide that opportunity 😎