We had what Emmy called “THE BEST CHRISTMAS EVER” several times, and I am going to call it that as well. We had so much fun! Christmas Eve began with brunch at my parents’ house with several neighbors, even friends from high school and some of my brother’s friends from college. It was yummy, fun, and the kids all had a ball playing together. One of my very good friends brought our family hand-crocheted items she made for us! I snapped some pictures on my phone quickly so I could share….
Sawyer in his new dinosaur hat and scarf. It has a few spikes on the hat which are SO cool! He wore this for about 3 hours after he opened it!
I received a funky floppy gray hat perfect for me….. nice self portrait for you!
And Chris received a gorgeous blue scarf, but he was driving so I couldn’t get it on him for a picture, but he tried it on as soon as we got home and it is awesome! She is SO talented. She takes the train to DC for work and uses that time for her crocheting.
After brunch was over, we headed home to prepare for Christmas Eve dinner at our house, which was a super easy, healthy, and delicious potato soup, bread, my go-to salad of spinach, dried cranberries, apples, walnuts, blue cheese, and a lemon honey vinaigrette. This was all followed by yummy LOBSTER! We had my parents, my brother and his girlfriend and our own four all here. It was so wonderful to spend time all together.
Now our tradition is to open all gifts to each other on Christmas Eve, so that Santa has Christmas morning all to himself. I wanted to share some glimpses from Christmas Eve and some of the fun hand made gifts we gave each other.
Here are the kids in their matching pj’s! 🙂
I used a T-Shirt Chris bought me at Hot Topic (his place of employment) to make Viri and Dana this pillow for their house. Viri loves mustaches, so I thought it would be funny. She couldn’t wait to use it on the plane ride home today, too! She planned on using it to talk to the flight attendants…. “Excuse me, I mustache you a question.”
Sawyer could not be parted from his lego book, even to open other gifts.
I was here: Christmas 2011!
And Chris was there, too!
Viri and Dana gave Emmy her very fist Caboodle complete with makeup and nail polish, so here are the girls talking make-up.
Sawyer is a big Ravens fan (influenced by peers at school!) and was thrilled to get a football and his first ever real football jersey!
Emmy also received an awesome princess set from my friend Sandie that she has been using to make bracelets, necklaces, and find fun hairdos for Gramma to try on her.
After the fun of Christmas Eve, the kids fell right to sleep. They woke around 7 on Christmas morning, but we made them wait til everyone was awake and coffee was made to go downstairs and open presents from Santa. I missed the picture of the kids running in…. it came out blurry. But I asked them to reenact their surprise for me. Sawyer is a talented actor.
They had so much fun opening presents from Santa and were happy with their gifts.
I wanted to share some of the handmade gifts we received. Friends of ours gave us adorable ornaments for the doggies! The dogs also received awesome new pottery dishes from my brother and Viri from a studio in LA. They are gorgeous! Our dogs are spoiled!
Ali made these new additions for my tree. The pom pom ornaments says “May 2012” because that is when Ali comes to visit for an entire week and we are all just a little excited about it. Just a little.
My mom gave me several hand-made gifts. She is so talented and creative….
I received two of these, one has “A Love Song” on it, and the other is “The Haunted Hour” which will be perfect for Halloween next year!
This big cheese box is beautifully decorated with roses she rolled out of newspaper! It will stay in our guest room – it looks perfect in there!
She made these awesome yarn wrapped trees and matching garland in my favorite colors!
And check out these fun arm warmers she made! Don’t look at my bitten finger nails… just look at the pretty green warmers!
The kids holiday art gallery grew throughout the month as we added all the new pieces.
These are some of my favorite additions.
This piece was made by Sawyer at school.
And Emmy made this girl reindeer for me!
That’s it! I will see you tomorrow for your best furniture projects of 2011!
And I will ba back later this week to share a year of my own favorite projects!
Hope you all had the Merriest of Christmases, and if you are traveling today I wish you safe and happy travels.
