On the 2nd day of Christmas...

...we were in Lena, IL!

 

By Christmas day, we'd made it through our flights with no problems at all, and we'd been in IL (or "the frozen tundra", as I like to call it :) for 12 hours.  We all gathered in Lena, IL to celebrate Christmas at the request of Jeff's Grandma Wenzel.  She sent invitations/requests out LAST Christmas asking that everyone join her and Grandpa Wenzel for Christmas 2012.  And here we all were!

 

And when I say "we all", I mean ALL 30 OF US.  There were 15 grandkids and 7 great-grandkids, and the rest were those from which we all stemmed.  I think I mentioned that Jeff has a large family.  :)

 

With that many peeps, we ended up at a community center in Lena so we'd have plenty of room to spread out and fellowship together.  We always eat good with Jeff's family, and this occasion was no exception.  We had all kinds of food, not to mention tons of yummy desserts.  We stuffed ourselves while catching up with everyone.

 

Before the meal, we put together "the pyramid" -- a long-standing tradition amongst the grandkids (and now the great-grandkids).  It's always a lot of fun and we have someone on standby to snap a photo before we all tumble to the ground.  We were only missing 2 of the 22 kids from the photo.

 

After we ate, Grandpa & Grandma gave gifts to their great-grandkids, and then had a couple of activities planned for the rest of us.  We all did a lot of laughing through that.  Then Grandpa Wenzel got up to speak.  He doesn't do that much so we all tuned in to listen to him speak about the history of the Wenzel name.  It was really interesting for me to hear, being one who is blessed to have married into the family.  We heard history of all the kids, one of them being Jeff's dad, and then a little of how each family shaped up.  It was a special time.

 

The day was made special by the time we got to spend with those we don't see very often, given the distance that separates us.  It was good to be with family on Christmas day.