We continued with our annual Colvin Christmas Eve get together last night. Ever since I met Todd, his family has hosted a party on Christmas Eve. I remember being so impressed the first time that I attended. It was the Christmas of 1993 and Todd and I had been dating for only 6 months. As always, Kathy had invited all of her family, friends and neighbors to their house to be a part of their Christmas Eve. The party always included Christmas carols. Much to my surprise (and that of my parents and sister), we learned that first year that everyone was assigned a specific part in the Twelve Days of Christmas. It was quite a way to be indoctrinated into one of the many Colvin family traditions!
I don't have any pictures of that party in 1993, but I do have a few from the next few years; 1994 in Kathy & Ralph's temporary apartment
Singing the Twelve Days of Christmas!
Todd and I took over hosting the annual celebration shortly after we moved into our first house in Owings Mills. While we eventually dropped the Christmas carols (and some day should bring it back for the kids), we tried to keep almost everything else. We were joined by the Colvin/ Wests and whichever O'Hara family members were in town for the holidays, along with our friends.
Well moving to Massachusetts certainly had an impact on our Christmas Eve festivities. For our 1st Christmas, we were fortunate to have both my parents and Laura and Chuck here. We were also joined that year by our 1st set of Plymouth friends, the Parmas, for our celebration. In 2008, we were lucky enough to have my parents come again for a week in December.
This year, we had to share them with the O'Haras in Colorado, so it was our first Christmas with no guests. Even so we continued with our tradition, and had the Parmas over again and we invited our neighbors, the Watkins as well. They have 2 boys, 1st and 2nd graders, and are a really great family. Brenna always gets a new dress for Christmas Eve. These days, she really does not want to put on a dress very often so I was glad that she wanted to continue with this tradition. Andrew even asked to wear a tie! They were quite cute together!
After an enjoyable party with great food (Thanks Todd), lots of sweets, and some gifts for the kids, everyone headed off on their way so Santa could make his visit. When I last checked before bedtime, he was on his way to North America, and this was enough to make the kids go to bed quite easily.
In all, it was a wonderful Christmas Eve with our friends. Even though we miss everyone terribly back home, it is nice to be able to find the kind of people here that enjoy sharing in some of our family traditions.
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