Christmas Day 2012

We spent Christmas Day with Josh's parents and Morgan at their house...we had yummy appetizers and a delicious lunch with turkey, ham, stuffing, cranberry sauce, asparagus casserole, green bean casserole, and sweet potatoes with marshmallows, syrup, pecans, and brown sugar (super low calorie of course!). After lunch, we went downstairs and opened presents. Being nearly 14 years old, Christmas isn't quite as exciting for Morgan as it used to be, and it makes it a little harder to shop for her, but hopefully she enjoyed everything! I do miss the days when she was young though, it makes it so much more fun seeing Christmas through a kid's eyes, with Santa coming to visit and seeing all the presents under the tree! But at the same time, it's nice to be able to get through dinner and make it till 5pm before opening presents!

 

Ready for the day:

 

Pixie comfy in her bed:

Yummy lunch:

Present time:

Sweater from Josh and me:

Official One Direction book....I remember picking the same thing out for myself 15 years ago, except it was N'Sync:

Moving on to her stocking....

Pixie wants some candy!

New purse:

 

Cowboys gloves:

 

Yorkie statue from Josh and me:





Copy of the Oliver North book:



 

Autographed jersey by Danny White from Josh and me:

 

 

Christmas Eve 2012

Josh had Morgan for the holidays this year, so we spent Christmas Day with his parents and Morgan at their house. We decided to have our Christmas the night before, on Christmas Eve. Growing up, we had a yearly tradition of going to mass on Christmas Eve, then opening one present each, and Christmas morning we would open the rest of the presents, along with our stockings. As we get older and create our own families, it's harder to continue those traditions but always nice to make new ones as well. Josh and I created a tradition of opening our presents on Christmas Eve, and watching National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (another tradition from my childhood). So that's what we did this year, and we were lucky enough to get snow on Christmas Eve that stuck around for 2 days, so we actually had a white Christmas! I normally go out all with decoratioms for every holiday, but I've just been so busy lately and so stressed that I didn't get a chance to do much this year. But the snow helped give the holidays a festive feel!

 

Toby enjoying the snow:

 

 Josh opening his stocking:

 

Toby is not a fan of cameras so he wanted to run upstairs and hide without opening his stocking: 

 

 Yummy Godiva goodies in my stocking!



Josh's goodies: chocolates, Starburst jelly beans, Rice Krispie treat, and a Star Wars light saber with M&Ms!

The new Oliver North book:

Signed to Josh by the author:

 

Me with Oliver North when I bought the book and had it signed:

 

Another stocking stuffer....

 

 The last shot of the tree before it becomes bare!

 

 The last present from his stocking:



Wizards tickets for when the Chicago Bulls come into town in January!

The puppies love these chicken sticks!

Decorations:

Lucy enjoying her treat in her Christmas sweater:

 

Stockings...except for Morgan's, which was too heavy to hang:

Christmas Festivities

This December (well this whole year really) seemed to fly by. I had so many things I wanted to do this holiday season, but it seemed like we just never had as mch time or money as we needed. So I've already started planning everything we want to do for next year, but we did manage to squeeze a few things in there for the 2012 holiday season. Last weekend, we drove to Manassas for the Bull Run Festival of Lights, a drive-through light experience. Unfortunately, you can't stop during the drive so I wasn't really able to get as many pictures as I would've liked; the shutter speed just wasn't fast enough. There was a walking festival of lights that we were hoping to do yesterday, but it was so windy that they had a wind advisory all day, so the idea of walking a half mile in 40 degree wind at 7pm just wasn't something we were looking forward to! We decided to reschedule for Christmas Eve, but with a 70% chance of rain all day, it looks like we may be going next year instead. That's okay, now that we know about it, we can plan better! But a couple pictures came out decent from the drive-through lights, so I included those below.

A couple of weeks ago, I was driving through one of the nearby shopping centers on a cold and rainy day to grab some frozen yogurt and do a little window shopping while Josh was spending the day helping his dad out, and I happened to see a horse-drawn carriage ride go by. I asked the people running it if they were going to be back, and they said between 12 and 4pm on December 23. So I decided to surprise Josh by bringing him by on the 23rd! He's been super intrigued for the past couple of weeks as to what I could possibly be planning, so I was really excited about his reaction. It was just a quick 15-minute ride around the area, but he loved it! Or at least he's a really good liar if he didn't ;). And the weather ended up being perfect! He's lucky enough to get the day off tomorrow, with the President closing the government at the last minute. I COULD have the day off, but I don't want to use any paid time off so I figured I'd go in. It'll be really slow I'm sure, hopefully the day doesn't drag! We're planning an evening of Christmas movies and cuddling on the couch while opening gifts, should be a great Christmas Eve. Hope you all have a wonderful Christmas holiday as well!

 

Sitting in Santa's sleigh...

 

 Pretty horses....Thunder and Lightening

 

 

Gotta stay stocked up on Josh's favorite part of the holidays:

 

 Ready for some Christmas movie watching!