Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, everyone! Well, Merry belated Christmas, as it is almost New Years. However, I hope it was good nonetheless. I hope that Santa Claus left lots of fun memories, and great laughs. I also hope you took time to remember the true meaning of Christmas. Jesus, the Savior, is born TODAY! Hallelujah! I just can't fathom that experience. Born in a manger, no room for the inn for the SAVIOR OF THE WORLD. It's just so crazy to me.

To me, Christmas means celebrating Jesus' birth, but also enjoying the company of my family. I love my family so much. They are kind of my lifeline. I thrive off my family, and always look forward to spending time with them in some way. My immediate family (being my older brothers) always seem to be weirded out by my love for family time. Whenever we go to reunions or get togethers, they always tend to leave before the party is over, and groan before we arrive in the first place. I mean, sure they enjoy seeing family as much as I do, they just don't like being social for more than, well, 20 minutes a day, tops.

However, as I already said, I thrive off my family. They provide such great memories and wonderful laughs that I never miss a family reunion, and am one of the last ones to leave. I love seeing my grandparents and aunts and uncles in the same room having a good time fellowshipping with one another.

It used to be that on Christmas, I would really celebrate it three times. We would wake up super early (or, at least I thought it was super early) and open the presents from our parents and  Santa ( :) ). Then, after a quick breakfast we would scurry out to my dads side of the family and spend the afternoon there with so much laughter and hilarity I could hardly stand it. Of course, it took me until just a few years ago that I was able to actually  understand  the jokes, but I laughed regardless. From there, we would head home just for a quick stop to grab the other presents to exchange at Christmas on my mom's side of the family.

I'm the third oldest grandson on my mom's side of the family, so it was always a lot of fun over there. My mom is the oldest of three kids, and therefore her kids are the oldest of the grandkids. I have three younger girl cousins and one younger boy, add that to my two older brothers and that totals the 7 grandkids of my Grandma and Grandpa Phillips. Anyway, since I am near the older group, a lot of the jokes and activities are geared toward my understanding and I laugh a lot. (Not that I don't laugh on the Henry side, I just understand the jokes a lot better on the Phillips.)

These memories are the best for me. Both my dads side and my moms-- I always loved Christmas because we always had lots of family and lots of fun. But-- lots of things happened in my family over the years, including the death of both my Grandma and Grandpa Phillips, and now it's just not the same. We don't get together as much on my moms side- especially for Christmas. It used to not bother me all that much, because I would always say "There's next time" or "Maybe we'll hang out as  family on a different time" But my mom and her siblings don't really get along very much it seems, and it always seems like its a HUUUGEEE burden for us to get together.  I guess it really started to bother me when I noticed the same burden trickling down to my brother. I recall him asking "So.. Are we going to pretend to do Christmas with (family members of Moms side) this year?" I mean, yeah I know that Grandma and Grandpa aren't here anymore for us to see during the holidays, but is it really that much  of a stressful time just to see your family? I love seeing them..

I don't know. This is a much different blog than my others, and I kind of feel like I'm complaining. And don't get me wrong, I understand the pain they are going through and sometimes don't want to be around my family either. But, ESPECIALLY at Christmas, couldn't we make the effort to see each other? That's all I ask..


And so it goes..