It is post-Christmas! (And, yeah, I know this is a few days late. But just go with it.) Which means that the Faulk family SURVIVED Christmas! It’s always reason to celebrate, y’all.

What you may or may not know about the Faulk family is that from our very first Christmas together, Wes and I have spent almost every Christmas on the road. 2004 was totally our own fault, as we decided that nothing would be more romantic than a wedding right before Christmas. And it was plenty romantic. What was NOT romantic was rushing back from a very short honeymoon to hit both family celebrations in Fort Worth and in San Antonio within a couple of days. The next year was the same. The NEXT year, we wised up and moved to Japan, where both families had to come to us, which eliminated any and all travel for the Faulk four but really stunk for the rest of the extended family. In 2007, we moved to Oklahoma, where we spent the next five Christmases on the road back and forth and all across Texas, enjoying all kinds of inclement weather — snow, sleet, and even a blizzard. And because Wes works on Christmas Eve night, we’ve had to travel on Christmas Day and the days afterwards every year.

But we’re good with the travel because it’s good to see family at Christmas. We had planned this year to head up to Fort Worth on Christmas morning then down to San Antonio the very next day. We were actually excited that for once, we’re closer to San Antonio than we’ve ever been in our marriage and that we wouldn’t end up spending fourteen hours on the road. And that — hallelujah! — we don’t live in Oklahoma where they always seem to get snow and ice on Christmas. We live in sunny, balmy Houston, where we were still wearing shorts on Christmas Eve!

What we hadn’t counted on, however, was a winter storm that was scheduled to hit Fort Worth on Christmas morning, freeze the roads that night, and make it difficult to travel down to San Antonio or even home to Houston the next day. What to do, what to do, right? We kicked around every possibility short of suspending time itself and couldn’t come up with anything. It looked like we were going to have to miss Christmas with my family and just head out to San Antonio, where they weren’t going to be getting any kind of bad weather. (And we kicked around all of these possibilities while in Houston. While we were wearing shorts. Oh, the irony, y’all!)

I wasn’t thrilled with this solution, but I was going to be a big girl and not cry about it. I had seen my family a couple of weeks earlier for Christmas with my grandmother, so I resolved that it would be enough for the holidays.

Because my parents are awesome, though, and because their little Hybrid car laughs in the face of mileage, they surprised us by coming down on Christmas Eve after the church service. While we didn’t get to see my sister and her family for the holidays, we were still able to get the evening with my parents, which was great. They were able to witness, firsthand, the drama that is getting Ana and Emma to sleep the night before Santa comes, and they expressed no judgment when I insisted that the girls also pour Mrs. Claus some chocolate milk and leave HER some cookies, too. (Ahem.)

Christmas morning, my parents headed back to DFW in what did turn out to be pretty awful weather at some points, but they arrived back safely before the temperatures dropped below freezing. This left the Faulk Four at home to build Barbie dreamhouses, Barbie princess castles, and assorted other toys. And to play every game we had gotten for Christmas, which was a whole lot more than you would think. It was Christmas… but it felt weird since we were AT HOME and not on the road driving somewhere. Weird.

The next morning, we loaded up the car, and after some assorted drama involving chocolate milk, donut holes, and two certain backseat passengers (I don’t want to talk about it), we headed out west to San Antonio. Unbeknownst to me, we were meeting up with the big family that night, so in this year’s Christmas picture, I’m wearing my travel gear — sweatpants and a Duncan Demons sweatshirt. Awesome. (And this, ironically enough, after I just posted a blog a while back about how we should at least TRY to look good for our husbands. Eh. I wouldn’t have handled the chocolate milk/donut hole drama earlier in the day quite as well if I had been wearing nice clothes. So Wes is still blessed, y’all.) We spent the next three days with Wes’s family, eating, visiting, eating, shopping, and eating. Did I mention that we ate a lot?

We came back to Houston just in time for my parents to come back into town (Hybrid cars, y’all — look into it!) and sweep the girls away for a week. WOO! I love my children, but when they’re begging to go to Gram’s house and leave me alone with Wes for a whole week, I’m all about shooing them right out the door. Just being honest.

We all had a great Christmas, and Santa was good to us. Wes got three pairs of running shoes, prompting Ana to tell him that this freed him up to be scatterbrained and lose two pairs of them, still leaving him with one. Gotta love simple math and simple logic from a six year old. I got a new Mickey watch (to replace the one I dropped a couple of months ago, inadvertently chopping Mickey’s arms right off as I did so) and a Kindle Fire, which is my new BFF. (Seriously.) Among several other things, Ana received stacks and stacks of books, which she set to reading right away, and Emma got a Tim Tebow calendar. Which thrilled her very soul, as you can imagine.

So excited for this new year and all that’s in store…