Christmas Recap

I just love Christmas. There is so much hype, anticipation, excitement and preparation and then it's over so fast! But I really did savor the season and enjoy it all. I didn't save everything for the last minute and I even got creative on some of my gifts. We watched Elf and listened to copious amounts of Christmas music. I sipped coffee out of my cute Santa mug that I got at a White Elephant gift exchange. 

On Christmas Eve we went to my parents house to celebrate. We ate fruit salad, veggies, mom's potatoes, turkey cheese sandwiches and it was all so delicious. 

After lunch we did our family gifts. Everyone was so generous and I made out like a bandit! I got pretty much everything on my Wish List and I loved it all! I stole this idea on Pinterest : I got a Starbucks gift card and put it in an empty Starbucks to go cup. I poured in some coffee beans and then stuck the gift card in.

Ta da! It turned out really cute and my mom loved it. Though she thought I got her a plastic to go mug from Starbucks, haha! I stuck my dad's restaurant gift card in a cute take out box and filled it with tissue paper. Pat on the back for my creativity because I'm usually NOT creative. 

Ella opening our gift to her.

I think she liked it. But the hit of the whole day was the wrapping paper and an envelope from Brad's Christmas card.

At 3:00 my dad's side of the family came over. We ate yummy appetizers and then exchanged gifts. My cousin got this race track with cars and it became a really fun toy for everyone. G, Brad and I were helping build the track and make ramps. So fun!

But Ella REALLY loved the race track. She would concentrate really hard as the car approached her.

Then grab it! It was literally the cutest thing I ever saw.

Ella's birthday is New Year's Eve so we celebrated her first birthday with my dad's side. My mom made this adorable fox cake.

And cup cakes!

How cute is her smash cake?!

She LOVED the cake.

And wasn't too happy when her mom took it away.

We took family pictures before calling it a night. We went home and watched Elf and I put together a breakfast casserole in the crock pot for Christmas morning.

I woke up to this deliciousness! I don't know why I doubted the crock pot, but I did. I had never used eggs in it before, but it was amazing.

We made mimosas and ate breakfast casserole while we opened gifts. We don't usually do gifts. We usually do a vacation over Christmas, but decided to do gifts this year and it was a nice change.

I bought this beer mug on Amazon and my sweet friend Brittany from Nudge Printing made this awesome decal for me to stick on it.

The decal is for Beards Brewery which is the great place we went to in Petoskey last month. The brewery has two meanings for G - one they had this beer called Holy Diver named after a song that reminded G of his childhood and two because G has a beard, ha! He LOVED it so much!!! He couldn't wait to display it in the bar. Speaking of the bar, G finished it and for Christmas he got bar lights and some awesome signs so once everything is up I'll show you how it looks.

G did really good. He got my nail polishes, fuzzy socks, candles andddddddddddddddd

A Keurig!!!!!! I know we're so late to the game, but we finally got one and I'm obsessed. It's so fun! I love all the different flavors and how fast it brews! Besides the beer mug I got G a bar sign, slippers, an "I" (for our last name) that holds wine corks and Phantom of the Opera tickets. It was such a nice Christmas and I loved the quiet morning opening gifts.

We took Manny for a nice long walk and then watched a few Christmas movies and then watched a bit more of Dexter Season 6. I'm not feeling season 6 so much. It may be my least favorite season of them all, but I'm pushing through. I loved season 1. Season 3 may be my favorite just because of the Miguel Prado character. I loved Season 4 and really got into Season 5 too. Season 6 is about religion and it's a bit darker than I'm used to, but I still want to know what happens. 

Friday we went back to work. We used a gift card and went to Hop Cat after work for dinner. Saturday G worked on putting the bar lights up and I cleaned the house, worked out, took Manny for a walk and did laundry. We watched more Dexter. I gave myself a Christmas manicure that I'm still obsessed with even though Christmas is over.

Sunday we went to my parents' house to celebrate Christmas with my mom's side of the family. We did brunch which was really fun. I love brunch! 

I'm obsessed with this picture of Ella. She is such a doll. I'm not used to being the favorite, but she would only go to me or Eric and it was just the sweetest thing. G said it was because her mom wasn't there, but I think he's just jealous.;) It was nice seeing everyone because we only see each other once a year. It was fun to catch up and enjoy each other's company.

After brunch G and I went to Trader Joe's to grocery shop. They had these new South African Style chips so OF COURSE we had to get them for my South African style husband. They taste like BBQ, but they were still good. 

We came home and relaxed before the work week. It was a great Christmas holiday filled with love, laughter, friends and family. Another good one in the books! How was your Christmas week?