Liddick family Christmas in June

When your family is spread out all across the US (NY, MN, KY, AZ), you celebrate holidays whenever you can and for a family in ministry, that's not always during the actual holiday. We decided to give Christmas in June a try this year and I think it's a new tradition that just might stick. Traveling in June is a lot easier than in December and there's much more that you can do together, rather than being cooped up in the house (not a winter sports family). We decided to meet in Kentucky at Matt and Brianne's house since they just had a baby recently. We were delighted to find this on their door when we arrived.



They had also put out their nativity and a small Christmas tree. It was beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Our first day there was "Christmas Eve", so what better activity than to go Christmas Caroling! It turns out that Matt and Brianne have become good friends with Joe Wells, who David and I knew from his internship at CWC in Michigan. So the four of us sported our scarves (it was probably 85 degrees at the time) and sang "Silent Night" for Joe and his wife. I admit, I mostly giggled and didn't get too many lyrics out.


On Christmas day (which coincidentally fell on June 25, exactly 6 months from and till the actual holiday) we all met at Olive Garden for our main meal at lunch time. Our waitress got a real kick out of hearing what we were celebrating (or at least she pretended real well).


After lunch we all went to see "UP." Loved it! Very heart warming. Brogan was a champ and snuggled his uncle Mike during the whole movie.

We returned to Matt and Brianne's for the remainder of the afternoon/evening and opened presents together.

Waiting for the festivities to begin.

Brogan says thank you for the Cubs blanket Aunt Melissa made him.

I finally upgraded my favorite movie from VHS to Blu Ray!Aunt Melissa was the lucky duck that got to snuggle Brogan during Christmas!

I wasn't sure what to expect, this being our first time celebrating Christmas not even remotely close to the actual holiday. But I was pleasantly surprised. Every family has their own traditions. Being a pastor's family, we've always been fairly flexible with our traditions and have remained open to trying new traditions along the way. There are a few things that have held consistent along the way. The one thing that really truly matters was that we were all together, which was a blessing. Many Christmases that's just not a possibility. I think for us, it's more important to find a time, any time, that we can all be together; and that's what made it feel like Christmas...even in June.

The Liddick family
** June 2009 **