Christmas Stuff Survey

I saw this over at Janae's blog the other day and I thought I'd play along!  Feel free to post your answers in the comments or on your blog!

1. Favorite Christmas Album/CD/Song? I love Casting Crown's Christmas CD.

2. Run on Christmas morning or take the day off? I don't remember if I ran last year on Christmas day, but probably not.  I'm not planning to run this year either...oops!

3. What do you usually eat on Christmas morning? Growing up I think we always had a big breakfast, but that is pretty typical if we were at Grandma's house.  This year Mike has requested omelets, and I'll make some toast and bacon too.

 4. Favorite holiday or Christmas tradition? I don't know if it counts as a tradition, but I love the time with family.  Trips to Kentucy and Canada for family parties.  Christmas Eve with my family--appetizer buffet for dinner, then the Christmas story, and then opening gifts.  Then Christmas day with Mike's family and of course, Christmas BINGO!

5. Real tree, fake tree or no tree? Fake--it's easier :)

6. Christmas pajamas… yay or nay? I love the idea, but it's not something we do.

7. Where do you spend the holidays? Your own house, your parents’ house, extended family, in-laws, friends? See #4--we'll be at my parents' on Christmas Eve.  Then our house Christmas morning and Mike's Grandma's Christmas night.  We'll do Mike's family later in the week.

8. Food that you always have during the holiday season? Favorite Christmas food/treat? Dutch treats--pepernoten and taai taai.

9. Open presents all at once or take turns? Stockings… yes or no?  We all take turns so we can see what everyone else is getting.  Mike and I do stockings for each other...and for Champ!

10. Favorite Christmas(ish) movie? Elf and Mary Christmas

More Christmas--More Family :)

Christmas day was another busy day full of family and activities.  We started our day by opening our stocking presents.  Even Champ got a stocking!!!

Mike and I are trying to start a new tradition where we buy small items for eachother throughout the year to fill our giant stocking.  This year was pretty slim pickings, but we hope to improve this tradition in the coming years!

We enjoyed a wonderful worship service followed by tea and cookies at my parent's house before heading back home to do our gifts.  We were both pleasantly surprised by what we received :)

We topped off our Christmas day with another great family party--this time with Mike's extended family.  Everyone brought a dish to pass and there was plenty of delicious food.  After food we gathered around for gifts.  It's so much fun to see the little kids receive their gifts!

I also got to enjoy some cuddle time with our newest cousin--Bret!  He was just over 2 weeks old and such a sweetie!

Well, that's it for Christmas 2011...bring on 2012 :)

Family Christmases

Better late than never right?  I have one more Christmas post after today's and so I'm hoping you're not sick of Christmas yet. Only 11 months til Christmas 2012 :)

We started our Christmas Eve Celebration with Mike's immediate family.  His mom prepared a delicious lunch for us and we spent some time enjoying everyone's company before celebrating with gifts.  We were really blessed with some items we've really been wanting this year!

After a fun afternoon with Mike's family we packed up the car and headed out to Allendale.  First we went to church. Our church has a tradition of doing a "family Christmas" for our Christmas Eve service.  Whoever wants to can participate, whether sharing a song, poem, story, or Bible Verse.  Our church was decorated beautifully for Christmas!

After the church service we headed over to my parent's house for our family celebration.  This year was extra special because my Grandma (from Canada) was with us!

My parents have finally collected enough snowmen and Santas to line their stairs!  I love how it looks. 

I also love this table full of food.  Oh my!  Looking at all the deliciousness is making me hungry again!  We enjoyed spinach artichoke dip, homemade bread, bacon & mozzarella bread, a cheese/meat/cracker tray, cheeseburger pizza wedges, and some sweet treats.  I love our appetizer tradition!

Mom sent Mike and I on a treasure hunt for one of our gifts--a storage cube/foot rest.  We've wanted one for a while.  Mike thought it made a good pillow :)

My Dad's mom made the cross-stitched pillowcase he's holding.  She passed away a few years ago so memories of her are very precious!  My mom surprised my dad by framing the pillowcase for him.  Isn't it beautiful?

Christmas in Canada

I'm still playing catch up with sharing about our Christmas!  January isn't over yet, so I hope it's not too late to continue sharing about our holidays.  I've had trouble uploading pictures lately, it will appear like the pictures are uploading but once they're all done, they disappear!  I tried uploading about 10 pictures for my next post and poof!  all gone :(

Anyway, as I shared earlier, we got to go to Canada for our family Christmas party this year.  We spent Friday in Toronto, and then Saturday the whole family came to my Grandma's house for the party.  After enjoying some snacks, we started in on the gifts. 

Grandma's mailbox has been in need of serious repair for years.  My Uncle and his family made this beautiful new mailbox for her.  She was so thrilled!

These gifts were for the adult gift exchange we do.  We draw numbers to choose a gift and then someone can steal that gift from you.  We always have a lot of fun playing it and it's interesting to see which gifts get stolen a lot!

After gifts we all headed downstairs for dinner.  Everyone brought something and we had lots of food!  We ended the evening by singing Christmas Carols around the table (our family tradition).

We had a great time and I'm so glad we were able to go see everyone!

Toronto

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and New Year's celebration. Mike and I were blessed to be able to spend time with both of our families, and our extended families.  Our Christmas celebration kicked off with a trip to Canada for the Christmas party on my mom's side.  We were able to go a day early and decided it would be fun to go downtown Toronto (Mike had never been!).  We convinced my Grandma to join us, so my parents, brother, Grandma, and Mike and I enjoyed a fabulous day downtown. 

We took the GO Train from Whitby to Toronto.  From there we decided to walk around a bit.  We went to the CN tower (below) as well as a stadium.

Walking around caused us to work up an appetite so we had to find a place to go for lunch.  We all voted to try something new, so we went to an Arab restaurant.  It was absolutely delicious!  We got a fabulous deal (sandwich and salad for like $5.99!)





I started with a tabouli salad.  I'd never had tabouli before and I was impressed. 

The star of the show was the Shawarma I ordered.  It was out of this world delicious!

Mike also had a salad...tomatoes with cabbage and tabouli.

After lunch, we continued our tour.  We ventured over to the city center and saw this beautiful Christmas tree.  We had to have our picture taken of course!

The next stop was the Eaton center.  I wanted to go to Lululemon and H&M since we don't have those stores close to us.  It was fun to be part of all the excitement in the mall.

Our last event of the day was a subway ride.  We had no destination, just wanted the experience.  Of course it just happened to be the busy part of the day, but that just added to the fun.

We had a ton of fun in Toronto.  I have pictures of our family party to share later--don't want to go into picture overload!

Merry Christmas to me!

I've been saving up for a few months, and I was finally able to purchase something I've been wanting for a long time!  A DSLR camera!!!

I've had it since we got home from Canada and I've had a lot of fun learning how to use it.  I know I still have SO much to learn, but I'm really hoping this will be key to improving my photography!

Christmas Around Our House

Merry Christmas and welcome to my house! C'mon in and I'll show you around!

Here you can see my Christmas card display.  I made it myself--a piece of festive ribbon with a bow on top.  Then I bought some tiny clothespins to attach the cards to the ribbon.  We don't have too many cards, but I wanted a fun way to display them!

I love this Christmas puppy--he looks a lot like Champ did when he was younger!

Here's my little Christmas centerpiece for our dining room table.  Feel free to grab some candies as I show you to the living room.

Come with me to our living room, I'd love to show you our tree! We have lots of ornaments on it that have special meanings for us.  And of course, under the tree you can see presents for our family members!

Here's a fun ornament to celebrate of first Christmas together as a married couple!

I wish you could see it better in this picture, but because of the flash, you can't see the words. It says "New Home 2010"

We started a tradition last year that Mike and I buy each other a Christmas ornament.  This is the one he got me last Christmas.

My SEM student made me this ornament this year!

This is the ornament I bought Mike last year

Mike and I both got one of these for Christmas last year from the SEM leaders.

This is an ornament that I have had for as long as I can remember!  When you push it, it plays We Wish You a Merry Christmas!

Of course, I can't forget to introduce you to Tyler, our talking snowman.  He always has a friendly greeting as you enter our living room!

I love this little Christmas tree--it looks like something out of a Dr. Seuss movie! 

Mike's favorite artist is Thomas Kinkade.  For his birthday this year, my parents gave him this fiber optic wall hanging.  You can't see it in the picture, but the lights on the house and the Christmas tree change colors.  It's beautiful in the dark!

Let's head into the kitchen and we can enjoy some cookies and hot chocolate!  I'm so glad you stopped by!