We always celebrate Christmas Eve with some family friends and we alternate houses where we have dinner. This year, it was our house (trying out the new kitchen!) We all drank lots of wine, ate lots of good food and enjoyed catching up with everyone. Afterwards, we went to midnight mass, well actually it's 10pm mass. It's always a struggle to stay awake after the wine and food. I don't think there was any snoring this year!
Typical Matt - hanging out on xmas eve
It wouldn't be the holidays if someone didn't change up N-O-E-L!
On Christmas, we woke up early and opened gifts. Everyone got lots of nice things for each other!
My brother always wraps his gifts in old movie posters from the theater
The guys all got Bears gear from my mom for xmas
Merry xmas from the street - Matt's xmas shirt
On Christmas, my gramma, aunt, uncle and cousin came over for the afternoon. We ate more food, drank more drinks and relaxed at home. Awesome day!
The day after Christmas, Matt and I decided to go check out the local Chevy dealership. We've been talking about trading in my old car for a while (we missed out on the cash for clunkers program... boo!) and getting a more practical car. So, I've been doing some research and found a car with everything we're looking for at a dealership in Springfield. We got there and they said they didn't have the car... and that they didn't have any of the particular car I wanted to get (Chevy Equinox) on the lot to test drive. They apparently are selling faster than they've been getting them in. Anyway, long story short, we gave them the VIN I had from the internet and they found the car... and we bought it! Turns out it was a custom order that came in as white instead of silver, so the buyer didn't want it. But, it was marked as SOLD in the back lot, so no other salespeople were even showing it. Guess it was our lucky day! Merry xmas to us! : )
After about four hours of negotiating, paperwork, financing, blah, blah, blah, we drove off the lot with our new car! We drove to Quincy to visit the rest of my Mom's side of the family. The drive was crappy - lots of snow. Good thing we had all-wheel drive on the new car!
Matt and me with my grandparents
I was experimenting with the different settings on my camera and took this picture. I thought it was cool and then I realized you could actually see me taking the picture in the reflection of the ornament. Oops!
The Christmas tree at my aunt and uncle's house is very pretty!
Someone (I'm not naming any names!) replaced baby Jesus with a can a Bud Light. It was funny at the time, but probably a little sacrilegious.
Gramma and Grampa with all the grand-kids
Gramma and Grampa with their kids
Adding in the in-laws (aka the outlaws)
We had a great time hanging out with everyone and it seemed to go by so fast. Luckily, we'll see them all again in a few days at the NYE party!
Erin, Ross, Brett, Matt and I all caravan-ed back to Chicago today in the crappy snow. The trip from Quincy to Springfield was not too much fun. For a while, there was only one lane cleared off and snow blowing everywhere. About halfway through, I ended up switching with Matt so he could drive because the roads and snow were stressing me out. From Springfield to Chicago, it wasn't too bad.
We're back at home now relaxing... our foot and a half Christmas tree kind of fails in comparison to the others, but it's all we got!
Hope everyone had a happy holiday and made it back home safely!
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