MilSpouse Holiday Blog Swap 2011

(NOTE: The Swap doesn't go live until Midnight EST but my computer was too excited to wait)

Hey there Lovelies!! Merry Christmas! I am so excited to be participating in this year's

I jumped on that wagon as fast as I could! Be sure to head over to Riding the Roller Coaster's wonderful blog (or just click that adorable little button) to check out all of this year's participants and even if its just a few, go visit and leave them some comment love! 

Don't be a blog comment Scrooge otherwise you'll get some ghoulishly haunting visits from the Ghosts of Blog Comments Pas, Present, and Future. 

As for me, today my post for the Blog Swap can be found over at Faith & Deployments and lucky you, its a video blog! Go listen to me jabber on and on about our holiday traditions.

Now to the main event. I have the beautiful and wonderfully talented JG here sharing with us a little insight into her family's Christmas! 

One of my favorite things  about Christmas was always going over to my Grandma and Grandpa's  house. I have something like 60 cousins on that side of the family,  counting all of my cousins' kids. Not everyone gets to make it every  year, but it's the best day of the year, getting to see everyone who has  moved away and only gets to come back once or twice a year. Now, we're  one of them. We  don't do presents, really. The little kids get presents, 12 and under.  But before anyone can open any presents, we sing Christmas carols. Yes, we do.

this particular year was during an Oklahoma-style  blizzard, so it's a smaller crowd than  usual

Every year, we sit around my Grandparents' TV and pop in the old Mickey's  Christmas Sing-A-Long VHS in the VCR and sing along with the bouncing  Mickey head. It is by far my favorite 10 minutes of the whole season.  Everyone sings, the little kids and the parents and the grandparents.  And we've got a lot of talented people in my family, so it's actually a  quite enjoyable experience, with harmonies and embellishments. It's a  blast.

Then the video goes off and the kids say, "Let's open presents!" And my dad says,  "How about we sing the video one more time???" And they all yell, "NO!"  Every. Single. Year.

My Grandpa died a few years ago. My Grandma died in September. Christmas  won't be the same without my grandparents.

This year, we aren't meeting at their house. We're all still getting  together. We're going to do the sing-along. We're going to enjoy our  family. And we're probably going to talk about them a lot. I'm not  really sure what to expect, but I know we'll all miss them. And I know  it'll make them happy to know we're all together.

Sounds like a good time to me. Now get going on making the rounds! 

Merry Christmas Lovelies & Happy Holidays!