Christmas with Dad's Family

Every year my father's parents, brothers, sisters, children, and now children's children get together the Saturday before Christmas and the Saturday before July 4th. Since weddings often prevent me from making the July reunion, I put even more importance in making sure I can make it to the Christmas gathering. This is by far my largest family and I have more cousins than I can remember by name! This year I decided it would be fun to do a mini-photo booth so that I could get quick portraits of just about everyone. So here's a little preview of my relatives...



One of the things I noticed was that as soon as people put the ridiculous hats on, their smiles instantly became bigger. :-D

Because we have so many people in our family, we often start off with a potluck of food, followed by a mass opening of gifts- handed out by a designated "Santa". Shortly after gifts have been opened, the teenage cousins retreat to their annual game of Monopoly while the older cousins and adults relax and chat. The younger cousins often spend about 15 minutes playing with their new Christmas gift and then find something else to do. ;-) This year my aunt Doreen also led some of the adults in a bit of caroling by the piano and the younger kids made some amazing gingerbread houses! The regular monopoly players received custom Monopoly t-shirts created by my cousin Steve, (an aspiring photographer.) In the past, we used to do a secret santa gift exchange, but our family became so large that it became more and more complicated to keep track of them all, and if someone didn't show, someone else didn't get a gift. We then tried the white elephant thing and some people found that too confusing, so this year all of the adults received lottery tickets. I don't know if anyone won anything, but I think my youngest brother Daniel won $1- HA! I decided to give my younger sister and her fianceé two large canvases of each other with their baby for their new home and while the picture of her isn't in focus... her reaction was priceless. It was the first time I had ever seen her cry out of happiness! Here's a quick little preview of the evening's festivities..