Christmas 2015, aka The Year of The Floods, aka The Year Of The Half-Decorated Tree.

This year’s Christmas was unusual in so many ways. Our events were spread out more than normal, so were were able to really enjoy our time. (Typically, we have multiple events scheduled at the same time and we end up running all over the place.) The weather was very warm–78 degrees on Christmas day. We had more rain and flooding that I have ever seen. The road in front of my grandparents house, which I have never seen even almost covered, looked like this:

That is the road those men are standing on, under all that water. Let’s go back to the beginning.

Christmas Eve night is always celebrated at my grandparents house. They fed us prime rib and we all exchanged gifts and posed for photos.

On Christmas morning, both our families came over bright and early to watch the kids open their presents/see what Santa brought. This year, we were super excited to have Justin’s sister and her family here (they live in Arkansas), so West did Christmas morning with our kids.

After all the presents were viewed, we had breakfast. Justin played chef and cooked made-to-order omelets to go with my biscuits and chocolate gravy.

During breakfast, Justin’s dad ran home to check on things and called to report this:

His yard was flooded and the water was very close to being in his house. Justin and Luke left to help him barricade his doors and my family left to check things out at the farm.

The rest of us spent most of Christmas day being lazy and playing with our new things. We watched two of the girls new movies. The girls started putting together one of Libby’s lego sets and creating clings with Kyndall’s Crayola Cling Creator.

That afternoon, my mom called to tell me their road was flooded. Honestly, I thought she was exaggerating until she sent me photos. Almost immediately after hanging up the phone with her, she called back to say that a car had been washed off the road and the people were trapped. They had called in emergency responders.

We loaded up and headed that way, but due to the immense flooding, we had to go the long way around to actually make it to my parents house.

After the (successful) rescue, we went back up to my parents house for dinner, gifts, and games. We always have the best time playing the games my mom plans (and the prizes are top-notch!)

The day after Christmas was spent lazily, enjoying more of our Christmas goodies. That night, we celebrated with Justin’s side of the family. They had planned a few games for the kids, including this one where each kid built a snowman. Can you guess which snowman is Justin?

I say this every year, but this Christmas was the best.  It was so fun spending time with the ones we love and being silly.  Jase was a hoot to watch opening his gifts.  Justin has been off work all this week and we’ve spent a lot of time just all being together at home, which so rarely happens for us.

How was your Christmas?