Kowalski Christmas

We celebrated a Kowalski (in-laws) Christmas today.
The simple details: Brunch at our house at 10am.
More details: Gifts for grandparents and your own kids; variety of breakfast casseroles and cinnamon rolls, and cereals for the kids.
Fun details: We have a mystery gift tradition that we've started, where someone buys a mystery gift and we have to guess what it is. This year, my wife (I should introduce her, she's Kristin, pictured below), was the purchaser, and the item turned out to be unicorn tape dispenser. Also, we take a traditional kids picture on the couch each year.

Counter-clockwise from top left: Kristin is all about the details, including prepping the K-Cup drawer, the kids opening the mystery gift after Aunt Chelsea won, the family having fun, kids on the couch, parents taking pictures of the kids on the couch.

It's a bummer that we're not all together for Christmas day. This family is dispersed around the country, with us being in New Orleans with my family. This is the first year I've contemplated the fact that my family's traditions are my New Orleans family's traditions, not our own. I've never had a Christmas in Springfield; I don't know what it's like. However contemplative this prompts me to be, I haven't made any changes. And now, at the end of this day, I find it really wonderful to have had some time to rest and relax during our school's holiday break and then for us to come together to celebrate this Christmas. We were all together during Thanksgiving in Kansas City. Putting unnecessary pressure on ourselves to do something prior to Christmas, when we all disperse, would be foolish. This was a wonderful day that did drag on, just like a good family Christmas celebration should be. We had plenty of food, and went back for seconds and thirds whenever we wanted to. The kids played their guts out, spilled a ton and didn't finish any part of a meal they started, but that's the way it's supposed to be. So maybe I'm going to encourage this family to do it this way again next year. And maybe this can become our tradition as a Kowalski family for Christmas. If so, I think I would enjoy it.