Christmas 2013!

 

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas....I know we sure did. Aaron had to work for a few hours on Christmas Eve morning and Christmas day so we weren't able to go home for the holidays. Aaron's family came and stayed with us for a week and we had a wonderful time. We were so glad to have family here, but it seemed like time flew by way too fast.

 

Sunday night before his parents arrived, we went to the Candlelight service at our church. It was great to celebrate and remember the real reason for the season with Aaron. We both enjoyed the service.

I wanted to get a picture in front of the tree before we left, so here is our terribly awkward selfie.

 

His family arrived Monday when we got off work. We ordered pizza, played Wahoo, and caught up with them.

 

Christmas Eve morning, Aaron and his brother went hunting while Aaron's mom and I went grocery shopping. Their family's Christmas Eve tradition is to watch Christmas movies and play games while their mom makes lots of different snacks for them to munch on throughout the evening. I was excited to help his mom cook and learn a few new yummy recipes. We had Peppercorn Ham Dip, Dried Beef Dip, Shrimp Cocktail, a veggie tray, and Bacon Parmesan Baked Crackers. It was all very delicious. It was fun to be a part of their family tradition. We also celebrated his older brother, Stephen's 29th Birthday!

 

Christmas morning, Aaron and his brothers went to the fish hatchery to work so Santa could come in the morning. When they got home, we ate homemade Quiche for breakfast and opened our presents. We got so many great gifts. Aaron was like a little kid again. I could tell he was so excited to open presents with his family on Christmas morning. It was really fun to finally spend a Christmas morning with Aaron. In the 7 years we've been together, we've never spent Christmas day together. It was really nice.

 PeeWee, Aaron's parent's dog, admiring the Christmas tree and all the presents.

Samson the reindeer.

PeeWee in her Christmas sweater.

The Santa hat made them lick their chops.

 

 Ready to open their presents.

 

Samson loves having house guests.

 

And he just makes himself comfortable, right in their laps.

Our 1st Christmas!

 

After we opened presents, we had a lovely home cooked holiday meal that consisted of ham, broccoli cheese casserole, mashed potatoes, rolls, and Caesar salad...complete with a homemade pecan pie. It was delicious.

 

After lunch we headed out for a walk and some fishing. The weather was so nice so we had to soak up some sunshine.

 

Christmas night we relaxed and watched a movie called Home Run. It was really interesting because the movie was based in Aaron's hometown so we recognized all the places and they even recognized a few of the people. It was fun to see and it turned out to be a really good movie.

 

Aaron and I both had to go back to work on Thursday and we said goodbye to them on Friday morning. We miss you guys already. Thank you so much for making our Christmas so wonderful. We thoroughly enjoyed our time spent together. I am extremely grateful for such wonderful in-laws.

 

Stay tuned for our other Christmas celebration with my family. Can't wait to go to my hometown in January to celebrate with them. I'm counting down the days!!