Once upon a Christmas…

Hello everyone, how was your Christmas? Mine was pretty awesome and I’m going to tell you all about it.

It all started with my Sis-in-laws 40th birthday. She lives in Atlanta and we don’t get to see her and her family that much.

Her whole family agreed to travel to Atlanta to surprise her 😚. So surprise her we did, every member of my husband’s family showed up.

Our group

We were a group of 20 people. 5 families and Grandma. We all descended on the sleepy town of Villa-rica – a city between Carroll County and Douglas County in Atlanta. We stayed in a lovely house, tucked away in the Villa-rica woods.

Staying out of Atlanta sure had its benefits.

• We were able to stay in the same house. We couldn’t get any house that could take 20 people in Atlanta.
• Beautiful sunrise – one thing I really enjoyed was seeing the sunrise with all the tall magnificent trees in the background.
• We sighted a few big stags 😉.

It was just a good country feeling which we didn’t mind, even though we always had to drive close to an hour to get into town.

It was a wonderful gathering, and an experience to relish for a long time. Grandma would get the group to pray in the morning and sing Christmas songs. Her grandkids loved it, and it was hilarious how they would get the verses wrong sometimes but sing happily away 😂.

What we got up to…

The games, the younger children always had their interesting games – that’s when they were not glued to one device or the other! Or when not reporting someone. I had to place a ban on reporting ‘fix it’! I told them, whatever disagreement fix it, don’t come to me . But they all got along really well.

The guys were able to get away twice to play golf. We ladies attended church service and did a lot of communal cooking.

The adults were also a noisy group 😊. We had our music, a lot of 80s and 90s music, the noisy rowdy spoon game and other card games 🤗. Oh, and the battle for the last bottle of wine on Christmas day was epic 🤣. We had to measure it equally for each couple even though someone still managed to cheat 😮.

We must have celebrated 3 birthdays in the week we were there. My Sis-in-law, Grandma and one of the children. And so there was cake, cake, And even more cake everywhere!

We witnessed a proposal at the Atlanta Aquarium 😊. We were all staring at the whale shark and other big sea creatures when we noticed a diver in the water holding a board. He turns it and a gentleman goes on his knees and proposes, yes, you guessed right… The applause was thundering 😍!

My most unforgettable moment happened after the children had opened their presents. One of the youngest girls in the group looked around and said ‘Is that all! She said this in her beautiful southern drawl 😁. It was so funny… that moment deserves a scene in one of those Christmas movies.

Apparently, she wasn’t too thrilled she got more clothing than toys. Santa must have had too much milk and cookies that he got it wrong 😊.

Dear Santa, next year please don’t mix-up Lil D’s list. More toys than clothing please or better still ONLY TOYS.

Great gift idea

One of my best presents was a bracelet one of us made for every member of the group. It featured the first letter of the names in each family with a gold stone separating each family. Grandma and Grandpa’s names were at the centre. The ladies had a white one and the men a brown one.

Someone please get Kim! Kim is one of the trainers at my gym. I call her the punisher as she leaves no stones unturned and that is exactly what I need right now 🤣.

So beautiful people, if you see me looking rotund and speaking with a southern drawl! Believe it, it’s really me. Please blame it on my big great Christmas holiday of 2018 😎.