Nelson Family Blog: December 2025

Sunday, January 18, 2026

December 2025

The Christmas season seemed to fly by this year even faster than usual. We didn't have anything too crazy going on. We just had Elliott's wrestling practice, and then a couple weeks of basketball ball practice to get the kids ready for basketball. Otherwise, I was super busy with end-of-the-year surgeries. I put in long days, and was super busy every day.

Christmas was my holiday to work this year. So, I had to work the day before and the day after Christmas. This made going to MN on the day pretty impossible. So, we celebrated on Christmas Day with the Nelsons. We did the super nachos with the tinfoil on the table again. It was really good. Then, we opened presents. The kids got spoiled like usual, and they liked all their gifts. Emma was really into mushrooms, headphones, vinyl records, and baggy jeans this year. She really knew what she wanted, she made a list, and she loved everything she got. Elliott was a little trickier. He is super into Roblox, kind of into Legos, and occasionally into drawing. But other than that, he is kind of hard to buy for because he is at a hard age. He is no longer a little boy, but he's not quite into teenager things yet either. But he had a good Christmas, and he liked most everything he got.

On Friday, we headed to Minnesota to celebrate Christmas on Saturday. We got to mom's house in time for supper, and then after supper John and I met Ryan, Michelle, and Samantha at Whit Wort in Gibbon. It was really nice to catch up with everyone and see some of my friends. On Saturday, we had a nice meal for dinner. We had to cancel our plans to go to Barb's house for Christmas because the weather was not cooperating, and we actually decided that we would have to drive back home later that day, so we decided to just stay at mom's house for Christmas. After too much food, we opened gifts, played some games, visited and ate some more and by 4:00pm, we had to hit the road to go back home. The roads ended up being good for our drive home, but the fog was terrible. We couldn't see very far ahead of us, and it was a pretty stressful drive home. But, we made it home by 8:00pm, and we were happy to be home.

The next day, we had 50-60mph winds, snow, whiteout conditions, and the interstate was closed from Luverne to the cities. So, it was a really good idea that we came home a day early. Once again, it felt really weird and sad to not have dad there. He was such a Christmas guy. He listened to Christmas music starting in November and would listen into January usually. He loved the programs, the lights, the tree, basically everything. We missed him again. We were also bummed to shorten our Christmas celebration, but I guess that's the way weather is, and it was out of our control.

The rest of December flew by in a hurry. On New Year's Eve, we just had a quiet evening at home. The kids were out at Jim and Barb's house. They went to a movie, ran some errands, and had a couple fun days at the farm. At home, we made some stir fry (we didn't want to deal with busy restaurants) and watched a show, and then we were in bed before midnight. We are such party animals. It's hard to believe it's 2026 already!