Our Holiday Season

This year Josh and I hosted our first ever Christmas Eve at our house.  I was a little stressed out with the preparation, I wanted to make sure that everyone was going to be comfortable, well fed, and relaxed.  On Christmas Eve morning I felt good, I knew that I had done everything I could to make sure everyone enjoyed themselves, and honestly, I think it worked!

Check out our table!  Those are Grandma Bearden's rolls on the table (you won't find a better roll anywhere in the world), my clearance napkin find from Pier One, and a few carefully selected wedding pinwheels!

It was so special for me to have my family all in one place and enjoying each other's company.  This picture of both of my Grandmas makes me a very happy lady.

Here is one of Kelsey and I, she was rocking the ugly/cute Christmas sweater.

Josh did an amazing job helping me get everything ready, he helped cook clean, and best of all kept me sane.  I was pretty darn excited that he cut the ham and put it on the platter too, very traditional of us!

My sister is a lost cause when it comes to her collegiate allegiance.  She made sure to put some purple graffiti up on our whiteboard.  I'm not sure how well you can see it, but I did my best to hijack her design with some Cougar Pride.

My perfect Christmas morning starts out with a cup of coffee, a sugar cookie (or three), and the Disney Christmas Parade.  My Christmas morning was perfect!

Every year Josh and I leave out a plate of cookies for Santa.  This year, imagine our surprise when we woke up to find them actually missing!  We have a very strong suspicion that Santa had some help with his cookies from a 100lb furry elf.  Regardless of his behavior while we weren't looking, Leonard got into the spirit of things in the morning and opened a few of his own Christmas presents.

It has become a tradition for Josh and I to take ALL DAY to open our presents from one another.  As per usual, we tend to spoil each other.  We both got new puffy, down ski jackets, and more candy in our stockings than any reasonable person should eat in a year.  My favorite gift from Josh is a tea box.  It has spots for all my different types of teas and a glass lid so I can see them - its kinda silly, but I LOVE IT!  My Aunt Sue and cousin Laura from AZ sent us this backpack with a full picnic set inside.  We are already planning some summer hikes to use it!

We spent the rest of the day relaxing, and then we shared a delicious Christmas dinner.  This year rib eye steaks and crab cakes were on our rhyming menu. It was as decadent and amazing as it sounds.

On the 26th, we packed up the camper and got ready to head up to Crystal for our annual 5 night ski trip.  I'll be honest, the snow was awful.  There was one day where it was so icy that it was physically impossible to stop when you wanted to, and another day with such poor snow coverage that we only took 2 runs.  BUT, we had a great time.  Our friends Markus and Joanna brought their new camper up for a couple nights, and our other friend Doug, brought his camper up for New Year's. We had the absolute best neighbors to share our campfire with.

We had a fantastic Holiday season, and we hope you did too!  Happy 2014!