Christmas 2014 Recap

This year was our first Christmas in our own home as a married couple. We talked at length about how to combine our favorite holiday traditions and I really think we nailed it.

Christmas Eve we did some last minute shopping and then went to an open-house hosted by close family friends (his tradition). We then went to our church's Christmas Eve service (something my family always does, his family did when they were younger, and something we both wanted to be a tradition for our family). Then we came home and made some delicious home-made pizza (a food tradition from my side). His parents came by to eat with us and visit (a new tradition). Then we headed to our den for Christmas movie watching. Then came time for stockings. Our families both have strong Santa traditions and just because we don't have kids doesn't mean Santa won't visit our house. The trick was how to do it without seeing each other's stuff. We settled on laying out stockings on the separate sofas and just staring at the floor while you exited the room. It worked well enough and I know eventually keeping our stockings a surprise will be a lesser priority when we have kids.

The next morning our sweet puppies woke us at 7 for their normal morning needs. We got up, fed the dogs, I put a breakfast casserole (made the night before) in the oven, and we took our annual Christmas morning photo on the stairs.

We checked out our stockings, gave the dogs some of their Christmas treats, and headed upstairs. With just the two of us things move pretty quickly. We opened our gifts for each other, congratulated each other on only having 2 exchanges to make, and settled in with breakfast. For the record, my stocking had numerous kitchen utensils I wanted (for some reason I was down to ZERO rubber spatulas), a Columbia pullover, and a couple of gift cards. Coach's stocking had some food treats, a giant Mizzou freezer bag (love our soft-sided coolers in this house), and a Kindle Fire HD7 with case and stylus. Our gifts to each other were mostly clothes. Coach's big surprise was his drill set and mine was a new pair of Uggs.

Another movie and we were ready to head to Coach's parents house. It took some time during the movie to get all the gifts sorted and loaded up.

We headed out early because this year Coach was frying the turkey for Christmas lunch. So we had about an hour and a half to visit with his parents and just hang out (and eat) before the other families arrived. By noon all the kids and grandkids were in the house, we had a delicious turkey dinner, and started the present opening. After getting most of the little kids' gifts opened we took a short break (one needed to go down for a nap). Then it was round 2 for opening the adult gifts. It was a calm, relaxed day and I basked in knowing that I had married into a family that didn't run around to thousands of extended family celebrations on the holidays. I really enjoy just being with our immediate family and doing our thing on the holidays.

One thing I will need to change next year- pictures!!! Normally I'm the girl with the camera out the whole time and I dropped the ball all fall on this one. Time to get back in the swing of documenting every single moment! :)