Family - It's Worth a Shout Out!

I was thinking today about what I adore most in my life and it has got to be related to my family. First, I absolutely love the tradition that was started by the family on my mother's side for a Halloween Party Reunion with prizes, potluck, a giant fire, a candy sack hunt, and great reuniting with family. It is one of the things my kids have always looked forward to and we all try to dress in a certain theme or group of themes with our costumes. Here are some of our best themes...that I could find today...

Second, from my father's side of the family. I have grown to love serving for Christmas. They always spend time visiting family for Christmas and trying to find ways to serve each other. We used to exchange gifts and I spent a lot of time helping my Grandma get gifts for all the great grand-kids so that she did not have to guess what they all wanted (since half of them were my kids anyway). However, a few years ago, they turned the gift exchange into a project where we would do service or donate to a 3rd world country or some other project like that and just come and visit on Christmas. I thought that was neat, because all of the families already had everything they needed and they thought any funds spent would be best spent on people less fortunate as we tried to remember and show gratitude for our boundless blessings that we have been given through the years.