Merriest of Merries

This Christmas season was really great. It wasn't officially our first Christmas together but last year we didn't really do anything for it since our wedding was the week before. It was so fun to decorate and get each other gifts and such. Anywho, so we drove around for ever trying to find a Christmas tree lot, commmmmon Logan, seriously we had to buy our tree from smiths.. Lame. I mean I'm not bashing on smiths or anything, but down in my home land, sandy, there are lots galore! Alas we bought a cute little tree (6 footer) and brought her home. We watered her and dressed her up and yet... a few days later pine needles are falling everywhere. Poor little tree just didn't quite have what it takes. We left her up anyway and it's actually still up... we just don't have the heart to take her down. Although our tree was a slight disappointment it still looked and smelled amazing. There's nothing like walking in the door and smelling real pine :) mmmmm. I am really stuck on having a live tree. When we were little some of my favorite Christmas memories were going to pick out a Christmas tree. Although many of our journeys included mass hysteria, It was always such a fun time spent with the family.
One year my parents had some friends that had land that they let us go cut down our own tree. Does the movie Chrismas Vacation come to mind anyone? It seriously echoed that first scene of the movie. Everything went wrong. We were in the middle of a blizzard, trying to find where we were supposed to go. Finally we just pulled over and decided to cut one down... we got it all up on the top of the van and my dad forgot scissors to cut the twine. My mom hesitantly let him borrow her little cross stitch scissors and of course they ended up dropping into the ten feet of snow below. Classic. When we got the tree home it took up (in my little childhood mind) half of our living room. and to quote myself "we kids loved that tree." It was a year to remember. We stuck to Christmas tree lots after that. Every year we had some huge melt down at the lots trying to decide on a tree. People wanting a skinny tree, or a really full tree. My mom crying because she hated that we were all fighting. In the end my Dad always pulled us all together and made us choose, and make up. I look back and love all of those memories. It's always the ridiculous ones that make things memorable.

So I made this paper creation a few weeks back and thought it would be a fun tree topper? It worked perfectly! 

 I love decorating for Christmas. I love the advent calendars, the trees, snowflakes.... all sorts of fun things. It just helps me get in the mood for the holidays. My grandma gave me this little bear ornament. It reminds me of my grandparents house on Christmas. My grandma made these and has a bunch of them on her tree :) We always go over to their home on Christmas and have their amazing spiced beef. My parents have tried to figure out how to make it for the past couple of years and it has a pretty intense process. I don't know if anyone can quite do it the same as they do. It is so delicious.  My grandpa has to serve everyone their spiced beef. It has to be done the right way. You get a piece of bread, not just any kind of bread. Its nice and thick wheat (not sure of the brand...) he puts a few thin slices of spiced beef and onions (and if you ask for no onions, you'll get the eye... and then receive a few on there anyway) He then pours the juices from the beef on top. I think I am drooling just thinking about it. We also enjoy, my dads incredible potatoes (not anything like funeral potatoes). Always perfection. Grandma Jean's maple cookie's (Marcus's fav) Tammy's million layered jello, cracker dip, and soooooo much more. Its like another Thanksgiving!

I think ornaments have so many memories that go along with them. My mom always gave us ornaments and little Christmas trinkets as part of our advent calendar adventures. We had advents all over our house and we would spend every night leading up to Christmas going around the house doing the advents together. (also lots of crazy memories of fighting about who's turn it was and what not.)

This ornament was my first one. My mom got us all really unique first Christmas ornaments and she gave me this to hang on our tree. I love it! If you look really close you can see my name and birth date on it.

This beauty goes a few years back. I made a module of can cubes when I was first up here at Utah State and it has kind of fallen apart over the years, so I thought they would make fun Christmas tree ornaments? I thought the dr pepper can was fitting to show...

I love these sparkly green snowflake ornaments... I just love green. It was fun to go out with Steve and find some new ornaments for our tree. They looked great on the tree.

Another thing I love about Christmas is the cookies! We used to make all sorts of fun Christmas cookies when we were all at home. My favorite are candy cane cookies. They were always so fun to make because we could all help out! And they are delicious. So I mad a couple batches this Christmas. Ive never done it myself before but they turned out great! Steve and I had fun making all sorts of random candy canes :) My parents also gave me a copy of my grandmas cookie cookbook that most of these recipes came from. I am so excited to make some of them!

I love to wrap. Its a strange obsession but I really do. When I was younger I was always designated the wrapper. My dad and brothers would come to me to have me help him wrap my mom's gifts. I would act like I was annoyed and hated it but deep down I really loved it! I found some fun stuff at Micheals this year and had some fun with it. I also made some little cards to go with the gifts.

Here we are Christmas morning I look awesome. Not as cool as Steve in his Santa hat, that yes, he wore the entire day :)

 My mom has cross stitched us all these beautiful stockings... and I forgot to take a picture, they are so wonderful tho. I always loved opening our stockings on Christmas morning. Santa (aka daddyrom) always does such a good job at putting fun things into our stockings. I love my parents so much. I am so grateful for all of the fun traditions they created for us when we were young. My favorite Christmas tradition was on Christmas eve we would always sit down and read Christmas books together. My parents have some beautiful Christmas books and it was good for us to think about the savior and read different stories that relate to him. It was always helpful to get us out of our greedy moods, even if it was only for a few minutes. This year we didn't have Marcus with us for Christmas. Marcus is one of the most Christ like people I know. He is so gentle and giving. There was definitely something missing without him there this year. I hope that I as time goes on I can be more like him. This Christmas was so great to spend time with family and enjoy the things that really matter.  I hope all of you had a very Merry Christmas and are looking forward to a new year 2011!!!