Christmas Already?

It's that time of year. Family Christmas's have begun.

Perhaps I should call it a reunion...but really? I don't like the sound of that. Reunion makes it sound like we're all old people getting together to hash out our children.

I'm going to stick with Christmas.

This year our Christmas's are spread out. One already in the past, the next one the first weekend of December, the next one the third weekend of December, the next one the first Sunday in January, and one final hurrah....a whole week in Florida come February!

They're always tons of fun. Most of us spend the night both Friday and Saturday nights. In fact, we only have one Christmas gathering that is for just one day. It makes it seem so special to spend the whole weekend with family.

And this family that I was just with this past weekend is no small family.

It all started out back in 1952 when Grandpa and Grandma tied the knot.

Just 13 or so years later they had six children.

Just 46 years later, here is what we have.

And this. Minus one cousin and his wife who live in Oregon and the husband of one of the cousins and a cousin who vacated the picture to go rescue his screeching son.

And this. Minus the five or so babies who were sleeping and the cousin- from-Oregon's daughter.

In all I think there are nearly 80 of us...and already we know of four more babies joining the family sometime next year. One in January, one in March (?), and a set of twins in May (my brother and his wife)!

The family is growing by leaps and bounds.

Our children LOVE the Stull Christmas. And all the others for that matter.

There's a huge snack table. There's oodles of children to race around with. There's later bedtimes (not so smart) and little napping.

And that all results in huge attitudes the next few days, but we'll not talk about that right now.

It all makes me so thankful. Thankful that God placed me in a family that knows and loves Jesus. Thankful that my grandparents and parents passed on their knowledge of Jesus. Thankful that a group of 80 family members can spend an entire weekend together and enjoy every minute of it.