Christmas Traditions

Ever since I can remember, we have always put our Christmas tree up the afternoon of Thanksgiving.  Mom would make a big meal, dad would nap, and then we would hound him until he finally got the tree and lights up.  I think it was his favorite tradition. Not.  When we were older, we started putting the tree up the Friday after Thanksgiving.  This is what we do too.  Although since I've started working outside the home and have Tuesdays off, I put the tree up in our family room downstairs and decorate.  I LOVE that!

The girls help with all the other decorations and the other 3 trees we put up.  Our family room tree is the wildlife/outdoorsy style tree.  (See the pheasant and ducks back there???)  The living room tree is filled with ornaments that we've collected over the years for Brad and I and the girls.  I have a tall thin tree in our entryway that has the girls' homemade ornaments on it, and another similar tree in the dining room/kitchen that has candy and baked good ornaments.  I LOVE my trees.  I plan on putting one in our bedroom next year with all my racing medals on it!!!

 When we put up decorations, we crank the Christmas tunes and drink hot apple cider.

I love this pic, this is what you see if you're standing on our front porch...

 

You have to have several mugs of hot chocolate of course!

 

Making a gingerbread house is a must.  It always cracks me up how all 3 of the them start making it, but Rachel eventually takes over the duties and barks orders to the other 2.  Classic. And sometimes, hot glue is needed, just sayin...

We always like to make some homemade things for friends.  The girls had a lot of fun this year coming up with ideas.  Oh wait, they came up with ideas and I vetoed them because I already had it all planned out.  Wonder where Rachel's bossiness comes from???

The elusive cut outs.  I seriously don't know why we make these, no one eats them. 

We also watch every Christmas movie known to man....our favorites are National Lampoons Christmas Vacation, Elf, The Grinch and my fave, The Family Stone.  That is always one of my saddest parts of Christmas being over, not watching the movies.

Christmas morning we make the girls stay in their rooms until 6, which gives Brad and I some time to relax and drink coffee.  Love that!  I always make cinnamon rolls for breakfast and Brad makes eggs and liver sausage (nasty).  The last couple years we have gone to mass Christmas morning at 9:30 instead of Christmas Eve.  We really enjoyed having more time on Christmas Eve, and since they are up at the butt crack of dawn, 9:30 service isn't so bad...

Christmas 2014

I can't believe another Christmas has come and gone...Even with how busy we were, I really feel like we soaked in every minute of the season.  I don't think there is a Christmas movie we haven't watched!  I have thoroughly enjoyed every movie, song, craft, goodies and cocktails to the fullest!  I also would have to say that we really enjoyed our nightly devotionals with the girls too.  I have a great book called The ADVENTure of Christmas.  Each devotional talks about a different Christmas tradition and how we can relate it to Christ's birth.  It's really quite interesting, and the girls look forward to it. We also read a few sentences every night from Mathew that talks about Jesus' birth.  We may not be a weekly church going family, but we try to incorporate family devotions every night.

We did lots of entertaining this year, which I love!  We were supposed to have Brad's family over for Christmas Eve, but mousey had gotten a stomach bug last weekend, and with our nephew having heart surgery a couple weeks ago, we decided not to take a chance and spread the germs, so we had it at his mom and dads.  It all worked out!

Christmas Eve morning was a bit of a disaster...I could not find the gift I had gotten Brad from the girls.  I STILL cannot figure out where I hid that damn thing...So naturally I was in tears.  THEN, Brad proceeds to tell me that he cannot remember where he put Emma's big gift from Santa, a phone.  UGH!  We spent about 3 hours searching for that, and thankfully found it!  Stressful, I tell ya...

We headed over to the farm at around 1:00.  I brought my sweet and sour meatballs that I bring every year.  Everybody brings some sort of an appetizer, works out great!  This year instead of drawing adult names, we decided to do white elephant gifts.  Not stupid, crappy gifts though, something you would want to get.  For my girl gift I bought a Bath and Body works foaming soap, a car freshener clip with an air freshener, a cinnamon scented candle and some body wash.  Brad gave a package of beef sticks/summer sausage and a couple lottery tickets.  We did the dice game to see who got what gifts and it was a blast!  I ended up with 2 wine glasses and a bottle of wine, and Brad got a bottle of Captain Morgan and a Tervis Twins glass, perfect!

We got home around 7 and then opened our gifts with the girls.  We got them each a pair of jammies and a shirt or outfit.  Everything else comes the next morning from Santa.  The girls exchanged gifts too, lots of fun!  Then we watched part of Christmas Vacation and the girls headed to bed.  They all sleep in the same room and load up with movies, toys and books for when they get up early.  Our rule is that you cannot come downstairs until 6:00!

I think everyone was happy with what they got!  Emma got a phone, Rachel got an Iphone and Alayna's favorite gift was with this mixing stand that you can make real food with, or her Fur Real Panda.

Rachel and her Iphone.  She was overjoyed with that damn thing...

I didn't get a pic of Emma, I am always SO bad with taking pics Christmas morning.

I got an Erin Condren Planner, and LOOOOOOVE it!  I especially love the quote Brad put on it.  :)

I also got a Ninja blender and a running tank that says, "I Don't Sweat, I Sparkle"!

Brad got two Tervis cups from the girls, and then a weather station that has not been found yet...

We did manage to get a quick pic of them Christmas morning though!  And I had to get a pic of the last day of Billy the elf...he wrapped up the tree, and was found hanging over the curtain rod.  Crazy elf! 

Hope you all had a WONDERFUL Christmas!

Christmas Goodies

Sunday was our day to get everything done and cleaned for Christmas.  The girls had gifts to make for their friends, so we spent the afternoon crafting and watching The Wizard of Oz!

Rachel made peppermint bath salts and letter ornaments for her friends.  

Emma made ornaments and gave each of her friends a candy cane M&M.

We decorated some sugar cookies...

And mousey (or rather mom)  made letter ornaments too.

 

Our house is spotless (for at least a day) and laundry is done, now to make jello and meatballs (what a combo) for Christmas Eve and I'm done!  At least until Friday....:)

Our Weekend

We had another great but busy weekend.  Thursday night Rachel and Emma had orchestra concerts.  My nephew Sam was with us too, as his brother had surgery.  They sounded amazing, I love listening to orchestra!  I really wish my Grandma Omi was here, she would be thrilled with hearing them.

My grown up girl...

Brad and I are having way too much fun with our elf on a shelf this year.  He was found "pooping" Hershey Kisses, and then yesterday he made mustaches on their school picture frames in the entryway.  Hilarious.

Friday night we had a Christmas get together with the Rothsteins and had a BLAST!  They made ribs and crab legs and we played games with the kids all night.  We started out with a ping pong tournament, then had a spelling bee (I came in 2nd!).  It really was so much fun!  They got us the sweet Christmas Vacation glasses (if you know anything about our family, its that we are OBSESSED with Christmas Vacation!).

Our sweet kiddos.

Saturday was just a chill day, we all napped and mousey didn't feel well all day.  That night she threw up once, and then again the next morning, but felt great the rest of the day, weird.  Sunday was power cleaning all day as we are having Christmas Eve at our house (provided everyone is healthy).  I also helped the girls with their friend and teacher gifts, and we also made more cookies.  Busy busy!

The Making of a Christmas Card

I had originally planned on having family pictures taken this fall and using that for our Christmas card.  However, the weather never cooperated when we (or her) were available, and then when it did I ended up with an eye infection, and then when that cleared, ms. mouse scratched the heck our of her face sledding.  So, we decided to just do a quick picture in front of the tree.  Quick.  Key word is quick.  What ensued was an hour of trying to get the lighting right, animals to sit still and kids to smile nice.

I'm not sure which is harder, getting the animals to sit still or getting the girls to not have a cheesy smile.

 

The cat and the dog kept trying to attack each other.

Which then made Maci (the cat) dig her hind paws into Alayna's back.

So, needless to say, after an hour of taking at least 100 pictures, we did get ONE good one.  I don't think Brad will ever do that again...

Holiday Train

What a fantastic but BUSY weekend we had!  Friday night we had my company Christmas party.  Lots of fun, but very tired the next day, yowsa....Brad and the girls were making sausage at the farm, so this mama got a nap in!

Saturday night the girls were supposed to make their First Reconciliation at 4:00, but the lady gave us the wrong time, it was actually at 3, so we missed it.  We were planning on surprising the girls by taking them to the holiday train in Annandale at 7:15.  We ended up going out to eat at a local truck stop before heading to Annadale.  The food was SO good!

The girls had no idea what we were doing, haha!  The train was pretty cool, it was too bad that we couldn't hardly see anything because everybody had their kids sitting on their shoulders.  Bummer.  We ended up leaving early, because nobody could see and the amount of smokers out there was crazy!

It was still a super fun night hanging with these three, well, until Alayna had a meltdown when we got home...she was sleeping, yikes.  You know the saying, don't wake a sleeping bear...