It’s no South African Christmas but still…

As the Christmas time approaches in the USA I couldn’t help but think of my Christmas adventure last year. The adventure that involved a lot of travel time, many friends and family members and of course braais, biltong and the sun!

Christmas eve lunch with friends

 Hmm, I almost forgot Tyler's tradition of Merry Kruegers Christmas. We all met up at Kruegers to visit friends and have a free buffet lunch before heading to separate family celebrations. We played darts and shuffle board, it was so great to see friends that we hadn't seen in a while.

Tyler's nephew Hunter

However this year I am in the USA for Christmas which means there will be friends, Tyler’s family and cold freezing weather. We started our Christmas season by visiting Tyler’s maternal gran, where we celebrated with aunts, uncles and cousins from that side of the family.

Next we went to Tyler’s mom, for Christmas Eve. The evening started with a church service which was a small look into what life into the Augustin/Brunner household must have been like growing up. Tyler talked through the service, his sisters argued about stuff and his mom gave them the “you-better-behave” stare. Hopefully everyone listened up long enough to something.

One of Tyler's present from me :D

Then we went over to Tyler’s mom’s house where we opened presents and ate a wonderful dinner.  Unfortunately I had previously told Tyler I was thinking of buying a sewing machine (which I eventually did) but unbeknownst to me, he told his mom…who brought me a sewing machine. It was a wonderful gift, but since I already had one I had the awkward moment of “now what do I do?” Luckily she totally understood, and had the gift receipt so it was easy to exchange.

Kids and Christmas!

I woke up on Christmas morning excited to see the kid’s reactions to the presents. They were as expected, super excited and ready to open up every wrapped gift in sight regardless of whom it belonged to.  I received some very nice gifts courtesy of my host family and their family including a whole filled with scrapbook, stamping and craft accessories, warm winter gear and jewelry.

Cute kids!!!

Later on that day, Tyler and I went to him paternal aunt’s house for Christmas with his dad. It was great to see everyone and celebrate the season with them.

All the girls: Amy (Tyler's sister), Becky, Amanda and Jenny (Tyler's cousins)  me and Jessica (Tyler's cousin's girlfriend) 

So this holiday marks the 1 year mark of my co-blogging with Robyn… I am just excited to have not been kicked off. As for the holiday itself its exactly like the South African holiday that I experienced, tons of food, tons of drinks, tons of gifts, friends, and family. There is just one major difference, it is EXTREMELY cold here. For example it was -34C here just last week, so while that is just one difference it has a BIG effect. Luckily it did snow this year for Christmas so we were able to enjoy a white Christmas. Unfortunately we were unable to make it to South Africa for this Christmas, but I am hoping we can make it back soon!