Christmas Family Tradition

Well we made it safely down to Michael's parents house late yesterday night. We only hit a little fog on the drive down (much better than at Thanksgiving time). Michael and I would have left this morning but we wanted a little extra time to relax and enjoy more time with the family too. It was a good thing that we did because there are always a lot of fun family traditions that you don't want to miss out on and this year was no different. However you have to do first things first after traveling so far which Michael says is to............RELAX for a moment. It is a long drive after all. Once we were finally re-energized we got down to family tradition business. One Christmas tradition that Michael's family has is to make luminaries to light up the drive way and sidewalks. Michael told me that his family started this tradition when they lived in New Mexico and they have continued to do it since then. I think it is a really fun tradition to do and I have gotten a chance to help out before with getting them ready to put on the drive way so of course I was very excited to do it again this year.We make a little assembly line to put them together. You have one person open up the bag, the next person puts sand into the bag and then the last person puts the candles in the bag. I was the lucky one that got to put the candles in the bags for both line sides. I figured I could take a few pictures before I had to start working on my job (that is why there are not a lot of pictures cause it is my favorite Christmas job to do and I couldn't wait any longer to help out).It is a happy family of hard workers. Sure am glad that they are enjoying their jobs cause I don't want to trade mine.Now this was actually Jordi's first time doing this with the family so I had to take a extra special picture of him helping. It is also Jordi's first time celebrating Christmas with the family too since him and Julie got married earlier this year. I remember my first Christmas with the family and I am sure his is going to be just as fun as mine was.Funny enough it is also Hope's first time helping to make the luminaries but she mostly just supervised us. Oh, what a big helper we have. Now the bags don't take that long to fill and when you are finally done with most of them you get started on setting them up (helps make space for doing the last of them).Toffie is the pro at making sure we put all of the luminaries in the right spots.Here is what the luminaries look like during the day time. I am always amazed at how many luminaries it takes to do this. Believe me when I say it takes way more than it looks. I didn't even get them all in this picture.With the luminaries all set up the only thing left to do is clean up. I guess Michael needed two supervisors for this job. Once he was finished we all got to do something extra fun! But you will have to wait and see what that was in the next post.