Wow, woke up to a gorgeous sight! A three inch blanket of snow fell last night and covered the trees and houses. I haven't been keeping up with the weather (been a little busy) so had no idea it was going to snow, what a a beautiful surprise!.

What distracted me so I didn't even know what the weather was going to be?...Well Christmas and New Years of course! For us this time of year is a week-long fun-fest with almost nonstop family and friend time. When my siblings began getting married our mother, with a mothers wisdom, thought it was important we begin our own family's traditions and not feel we needed to travel on Christmas day unless it was to our in-laws. So was the beginning of our Christmas after Christmas aka "Minardi Family Christmas". Because we are such a large family we split our Christmas celebration into two parties-Adult Christmas and Kids Christmas which are usually held a couple days after Christmas. They are fairly self explanatory, Adult Christmas is a night where it's just the adults without younguns (nursing infants grudgingly allowed!). Younger kids are watched by older siblings and/or older cousins at various houses. Once a child is 18 or older they get to join the adult Christmas party. We have been debating the wisdom of allowing the older children in since their numbers have outnumbered us true adults the past few years! Next year will see several new 18 year olds joining us so the once smallish party has gotten rather large! Don't worry we don't all exchange gifts with everyone! The 8 sibling and our spouses draw names to buy a gift for and the older kids do their own Yankee swap exchange of a book and treat. Then we all get together (Older kids and adults) for a BIG Yankee swap where you don't know what gift you will get until the end.

The Minardi Children's Christmas party is really just a PARTY where you exchange gifts with your godchildren and eat, play games, eat, play more games and on occasion run around screaming (usually just the younger kids but the occasional adult may partake of the running and screaming too...) Amid these two days of parties there are cousin sleepovers galore which often last longer than the two days. Our kids feel there is nothing more awesome than cousin sleepovers!!!

(See below for pictures of the Minardi Christmas Parties)

The Webster's family fun doesn't end there. Since we moved back to Ohio eight years ago we have spent every New Years Eve and New Years day with my good friend and college roommate Glenda's family. Our husbands also knew each other in college and are good friends too, so it's always a great time getting the two families together. Usually New Years Eve is at the Webster's and Glenda always has a traditional New Years day spread of Pork roast, sauerkraut, mashed potatoes, dumplings, ...oops, need to wipe the drool off the keyboard...The past two years another roommate of ours from college (a friend of mine since second grade where all through grade school we would hear "It's always the Susie's") family has joined in the New Years day festivities of playing games and eating and eating and eating. This year for New Years Eve we changed it up a little by going to a mutual friends house and had a great time visiting with them while the kids ran around playing "Ghost in the Graveyard".

Now it's January 2, 2014 (eek, so hard to write that!) and I can finally relax now that all the festivities are over. I plan on pouring myself a cup of coffee and watching the kid sledding and playing in the snow while I'm snug and warm inside the house. Okay, maybe the relaxing won't really happen until the house gets cleaned, laundry going and blog up but then I'm relaxing and enjoying having no where to rush off to!

Adult Christmas:

Older kids at Adult Christmas doing their book Yankee swap

Kids Christmas:

I am so thankful to God for my wonderful family, good friends and this beautiful day to enjoy.

Peace and Joy,

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Sue