Christmas Supreme/Divine Upgrade Giveaway

I rarely get to see my extended family. I would be lucky to see them once every three or four years growing up, and I envy all of my friends who get to see them all the time. So last year when my Mom told me I was going to get to see my extended family over Christmas break, I was over the moon with excitement. I never get to see my aunts, uncles, cousins, or grandparents, and getting to celebrate Christmas with them is something very special to me since it rarely happens.

There was just one catch. I couldn't go. In a sense, I work with athletics at my university. Because of this, I travel with the football team on bowl trips. It just so happened that the bowl trip our football team was going on fell onDecember 26th. On top of this, athletics was taking us out to the bowl location by bus - it was going to take two days. I was crushed that I wasn't going to get to see all of my family. I was going to have to spend all of Christmas Eve and the better part of Christmas Day on a bus, and I was very bitter about it.

But there's another catch -I had the time of my life. You know the saying "Friends are the family you choose?" That statement could not have been any truer for that week.I may have been on a bus and crammed into a hotel room, but I was with my best friends.We all brought food to share on Christmas Day while riding the bus, and had tons of desserts for our hotel rooms later. Athletics paid for an enormous Christmas dinner for us too, so we all brought semi-formal clothes with us to dress up and have a nice dinner on Christmas. It was a solid forty degrees warmer at the bowl location than home, so after dinner weof course gotas many people in the hot tub andpool in the resort as we could.We got to explore an entirely new area, see the beauty of the area around us, and watch our favorite football team take home the dub the next day.

Sharing the joy of the holidays with hundreds of other people as well as some of the people whom I am closest to in my life was the greatest gift I could have ever received. These people aren't my family in the traditional sense, but they're my family in the love sense.I will remember those few daysand cherish them until I take my last breath, and wish that everyone in the world can someday experience the pure happiness myself and my friends had the amazing privilege of being a part of.