Sweet Shoppe Designs

Made for the SSD December 2017 challenges - scrap a Christmas childhood memory on Dec 8
journaling: When we moved to Pullman, WA when I was 9 we moved far away from all of our extended family. In Oklahoma we would spend Christmas Eve with my dad's family and Christmas day with my mom's family. For several years we would attend the Christmas Eve service at church and then go home and spend the evening by ourselves. A quiet dinner, watching a movie and working a puzzle were on the agenda because we didn't open gifts until Christmas morning. Because we lived in a small college town we found that there were quite a few people we knew who also had no family to celebrate with because they couldn't go home for some reason. So, we started a new tradition and invited the whole church to come to our house for a potluck meal after the service. At some point a white elephant gift exchange also became a part of the celebration. The gift exchange could be quite rambunctious, and favorite gifts were stolen multiple times. The gag gift that appeared year after year was a small toilet plunger. While I enjoy the quiet evening of puzzle working and hanging out with our immediate family, I also remember the years of noisy, crowded potlucks with fondness.