I've been so lucky to spend the holidays with my family. Christmas was two days for us this year. Christmas Eve was spent with my brother and my mom. Let me tell you about this cool tradition of ours - Every year on Christmas Eve, we get to open one present early as long as Mom gets to choose. Well, it used to be a surprise but then we caught on a realized it was pajamas every year ;) So now we just look forward to our new pj's. This year, however, was slightly different. Mom hand-made my brother and I the onesie that Max wears in "Where the Wild Things Are". SO COOL.
They are so soft and warm. And duplicate as awesome Halloween costumes! We took mom to the airport the next morning super early while still wearing our pj's so she could fly out and spend part of the holiday with her parents. Jansen (my brother) did not take his off until the following evening and only because he really needed to shower.
Christmas day was spent with my dad and my step-family. We woke up bright and early to do presents and then proceeded to fill ourselves with pancakes and cinnamon rolls, yum. One of the coolest things we "got" was a riddle accompanied by a rhyme. I don't remember the whole rhyme, but it told us that the four items that we were given represented words that we had to put together to find out what the gift was. The items were: a tack, a pot, a lightbulb, and a pack of matches. My brothers and I were shouting out "Pin! Light! Bowl! Match!", "Pot! Matchbox! Lights! Pin!", and awful combinations like that. Finally I said "tack" instead of "pin" and we all got it at once - Tacky Light Tour and the Melting Pot.
Our family was going in a limo on the Richmond Virginia Tacky Light Tour and to the Melting Pot for dessert afterward. For those of you who may not be familiar with this activity - Richmond, VA has built a legacy of what we call "Tacky Light Houses", or houses that go way overboard with their Christmas light decorations, and consequently make it on an actual tour during the holiday season. Some of them are pretty incredible. One house we saw had over 700 hand-made decorations that used 170,000 lights.
Attending college in Kansas and investing a good portion of my life there now makes spending the holidays with my family mean so much more. I am blessed to be able to travel back here to see them during this time and I treasure memories like the Tacky Light Tour and sharing a stupid amount of excitement with my brother when we open a pair of pj's that our mom took the time to hand-make for us.
I hope you all have had a great holiday season and continue to through the New Year.
- Annika Wooton
Miss Butler County 2014
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