Christmas with the Sand's

Last weekend we headed north to celebrate Christmas with my dad's side of the family.  I love Christmas celebrations with the Sand's as we are a huge family and it is so much fun to cram everyone into the small town fire hall, enjoy our pot luck lunch and then just sit and catch up with everyone.  Of course the guys play endless games of cards, the kids run around like crazy kids and the woman just sit and chat.  Also to stay with tradition we had some special visitors again this year, Santa Clause, Mrs Clause, an elf helper and Rudolph all came to our Christmas celebration this year which made the kids very happy.  It was another awesome get together with family, I look forward to continuing this tradition for many many years to come!  Here are few pictures, I didn't take as many as I usually do as I was just getting over being sick and just wanted to sit and relax.

Now there is one more thing that made this day very special for everyone.  This was our first Christmas celebration without my Grandma and I know I was dreading the thought of celebrating without her.  Well there was a surprise in store for all of us.  The aunts and uncles has decided to take my Grandma's clothes and have them made into bears.  Every Child, Grandchild and Great Grandchild of my Grandma's received a Memory Bear from my Grandma - that is 56 bears in all!  My dad and his siblings (with help from spouses) carefully went through my grandma's clothes and selected what eat bear should be made out of for each grandchild and great grandchild.  Once we were all at the firefall the "tree of bears" was revealed and the tears started to flow.  My Grandma was there with us in her own special way.  We were able to look at the bears to try to figure out which bear might be ours.  Mason found his right away, his bear was made from a train sweatshirt that my grandma used to wear all the time!!  Colton found his next, his has an apple on the shirt to remember the times we picked apples on the farm but more importantly his has a golden cat stitched onto the backside.  My grandma had a cat named Tiger that she made sure she had made arrangements for before she passed and Colton quickly had fallen in love with that cat so that fact that his bear came with a "Tiger" on it was quite perfect.    Then I moved on to find my bear.  My bear was made from the outfit my grandma wore to my wedding!  These bears will be something that my boys and I will cherish for a long time and anytime we are missing Grandma we can find our bear and give her a bear hug!  Here are some pictures of the memory bears which I am so grateful that my dad and his siblings did for us, Thanks to everyone who was involved with this awesome surprise.

 Also I do every year I made sure to get a picture of my boys with their Great Grandpa and this year Grandma was in the picture twice as both boys had their memory bears in hand!

 All of sudden my Grandpa said wait... I need my bear!

 That's right, my Grandpa has his own Memory Bear from his wife of 50+ years!

Love these guys.  Also notice how Grandpa and Colton are pretty much wearing the same shirt... I guess my Grandpa is back in fashion!