Merry Christmas 2011

This year was a different year for us. Usually we go to visit our family out of state, but this year since I would be 34 weeks on Christmas we decided it would be cutting it a bit too close to travel. So, instead we shopped and shipped our Christmas presents to family and had the great opportunity to have my sister Linda and her daughter Amanda spend Christmas with us.

We decked out house out for the season as usual. It always makes me smile to see all our decorations out, especially the nativity, which we added the wise men to this year. I love all our white cut out candle holders and the spider on our tree from Dan's mom.





We also had out our various tins and cookie jars, Williamsburg pineapples, and new this year a pomegranate from Greece.






Christmas Eve was a little hard for Dan and I this year. We both had a bit of a cry fest missing our families, listening to Christmas music and calling to talk to everyone made us feel a bit better :) Then Linda and Amanda arrived and we headed over to our friends house for a wonderful dinner and acting out of the Nativity story. I enjoyed being around friends, family, and even a few little kids. After dinner we went home and watched movies and put out our gifts to each other. Quite a haul!





Santa came and filled our stockings and left us a few things! Looks like we were good kids this year :)





We woke up and had breakfast, Dan made yummy pancakes, roasted potatoes and chicken sausage with fruit and juice. It was just what I needed.



We opened gifts, and were totally spoiled this year (as usual!). Here's my loot:





Dan's loot:




We both got ornaments from Santa. Mine was the elephant with a peanut on his nose, Dan's was a copper pan.



Santa also left us some Christmas books to add to our future advent collection. We hope to have 25 books to wrap and open with our son the month of December as a new family tradition. We're off to a good start in the collection.



New decorations put out, plus me posing with my FAVORITE gift of all, and 11 lb tub of Nutella :)




To top off a wonderful day we opened gifts from Dan's family and found the candy cane pillow case Dan had as a child, a fun blanket sewn from fabric found in Sherry's sewing room, a silver baby spoon, and a traditional tin that held homemade candy that Dan remembers from his childhood as well. We also got the story of the Elf on the Shelf, which apparently is pretty popular now, but the idea was from back in the 60's. The modern elf was removed from the box and replaced with a Sherry creation. She made a ton of little elves that hung in garland to decorate the home, and would sometimes see the elf hiding elsewhere in the home checking in on the kids to report back to Santa. These fun traditions and memories brought tears of joy to our eyes.




Finally we had so much food and candy that day it was crazy! I've eaten myself sick the past few weeks and wanted to see if I could still see my feet...I can, but just barely :)