A Merry Little Christmas

I always love this time of year and celebrating Christmas with family and friends. Besides keeping up with my roles of wifey and Blake's mommy I tend to take on extra projects and activities during this time of year. They are never a burden and I enjoy each moment and the busyness. I realize others may not care for being busy and how hectic this time of year can be, but I guess the extrovert part of me thrives on it.

At the beginning of the month I was able to attend the Christmas party at my former school where I taught for four years. I have also made it a tradition to bring by cookies to my former coworkers before Christmas break. The first thing the music teacher said the year I announced I was not returning after having my baby was, "Who is going to make us cookies?" So far I have kept up the tradition of bringing them cookies for two years. Plus it is a good reason to come by, visit, and catch up with everyone.

 A few days before Christmas Blake got the cutest set of tiny books in the mail from a relative. I don't have much else to say about that, but I had to post the picture. I just love my little book worm!

 

 I was a little bit late getting Blake in to see Santa this year. I knew he wasn't going to like it, so here is my unhappy baby taking his picture with Santa.

This year I decided to take on a project to make something for my grandmother. During the spring I saw a pin on Pinterest around Mother's day showing how this lady made a present for her mother who had several grandchildren. I pinned the pin and was determined to make one as a Christmas gift for my grandmother of all her great grandchildren. Here is how that turned out.

 

Christmas Eve was spent with my grandmother, her five children plus spouses, her twelve grandchildren plus spouses, along with most of the great grandchildren.  We had to reserve the Family Life Center at our church in order to accommodate that many people. I failed to take any pictures, but I had a good time visiting with everyone, played Dirty Santa and won a Starbucks gift card.

Christmas morning was a little more exciting this year since Blake seemed to understand that there were (presents) new books for him to look at and read.

Two hours later he eventually tore off the wrapping paper on the box which is next to him on the couch :) I look forward to him comprehending more and being more involved as he gets older.

My sister and I along with our families went over to my parent's house for Christmas lunch and more presents. Yet again, I did a poor job remembering to take pictures, but here is a nice Christmas picture of my sister and me plus the hubbies and children.

 I really try to not make a habit of showing off my presents on the Internet, but at least this isn't on Facebook. Here is an unexpected gift from my hubby: A Snow White Cookie Jar. She is simply gorgeous! Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs has to be one of my favorite classic Disney animated films. I also have a ceramic figurine set that I hope to display in a china  cabinet one day. For now I will just have to settle for staring at this gorgeous piece every day in my kitchen.

That has been most of our activities thus far for the Christmas season. We still have more relatives to visit and presents to give which will probably leak over into the new year. For now I am probably signing off for the remainder of 2013. Happy New Year and God bless!