Traditions Weekend

Instead of alternating Thanksgiving and Christmas between families, the Smullin family decided to create a "Traditions Weekend". The first weekend of each December, we'll get together and celebrate the best of both holidays....

A Thanksgiving type feast,

Grandma Smullin's famous Christmas breakfast,

(including sliced oranges sprinkled with powdered sugar)

Gift exchanges,

Games,

and lots and lots of snacks and fun.

One of my favorite parts was the cousin gift exchange. Each cousin made a gift for their cousin gift exchange partner. It was great to see all the homemade goodies. I loved how excited and grateful they were. There were some awesome gifts; wooden swords, rubberband guns, wooden super hero cut-outs, cute headbands, flower clips, painted canvas logos, etc.

The adults exchanged gifts too. Our instructions were to buy a gift from the dollar store, or find something around your house, that reminded you of you exchange partner. This was also really fun. Some gifts were funny, others were nice. I received birthday candles...because I like to party, of course. Jason received some Utah Jazz items because, you know..he LOVES the Jazz. Teresa's gift from Julia had the best story.

Melissa (Jason's sister) and Brandon got married in LasVegas. Teresa/Jared, Mom/Dad and JC/Julia all went to be a part of it. As they were shopping for souvenirs, Teresa found a bracelet made of dice. She loved it and bought it! --Later, Teresa was reading a magazine about travel. The magazine said that buying a dice bracelet from Vegas was one of the tackiest things you could do. Julia heard about this and liked to tease Teresa about her "high end" taste in jewelry. Soooo, for Teresa's gift Julia made a necklace and earrings out of a ribbon and bobbypins. So when she gave Teresa the gift she said something like, "This is because we know you like high-end jewelry." --We all laughed and loved it. Teresa wore it for the rest of the night. The girls kept coming up to her and asking, "Can I borrow a bobbypin?" It was awesome!

Wish I would have gotten a picture of it. Actually I wish I had taken more pictures in general. Just wasn't in the mood... too much going on I guess.