I can’t believe Christmas is less than a week away. The year has sure gone by fast. The season has gone by quickly as well. We really only have three months left before you start leaving us once again. We’ll soon be celebrating a new year as well.

This past week we made sure to get our tamales for Christmas and we already have our ham for Christmas Eve. We still have just a little bit more shopping to do including some gag gifts for a White Elephant gift exchange with some close friends. I am really looking forward to a fun evening there.

Our family has held serious, and not so serious, White Elephant gift exchanges for Christmas several times. We would take turns drawing names or doing the White Elephant game on one side of the family. We did it once on my husband’s side of the family too. It always turns out to be tons of fun.

It gets really exciting when there is one gift that is coveted by everyone – so you hope that you are the last one picked to unwrap so you can get that one. It’s not always fun being first, because you usually don’t get to keep what you unwrapped.

This year, we have our one little party with friends, and then it’s going to be just my husband, son, and I for a quiet Christmas. It’s very odd for us unless we were sick or something, to not have people over. We just decided to take it easy this year and get some much-needed rest if we can.

We have been out and about to a few places so far this year, and we plan to do a lot more next year. Wintertainers are starting to arrive, and parks calendars are getting full of activities. We look forward to January and February because they keep us busy. We always have too many things we want to go see and do.

Let us know if there is anything special we should be covering. We want your news and want to make sure we are sharing what matters to you. While we watch the calendars for interesting activities, we learn a lot from your input. So please share that information with us.

We hope you keep sharing with us what you are doing at your park and in your community. We love seeing photos and hearing what activities keep you busy. We don’t mind if the event has already passed, just not over two months old. You can send your photos and stories, or story ideas, to news@wintertexantimes.com.