Christmas Holiday Recap

Mr. Charming and I did a great job dividing up our time for the holidays.  I was so happy because we are both very close to our family and wanted to make sure we were fair in splitting up time.

Friday 21 December 2012

(aka, the "end of the world")

Husband and I opened our gifts and had our own little Christmas celebrations just the two of us.  He got me a pair of shark slippers, a beautiful necklace, a watch, and earpods (the Apple's newest earphones).  I got him a North Face book bag, two bracelets (one made by Velina Bracelets with his saint, Padre Pio, on it), and some SodaStream accessories (his family chipped in to buy the SodaStream and I got the syrups and extra containers).  Then we each did a few stocking stuffers.

Saturday 22 December 2012

I had a few things to work on, like installing a new blog design for a client, and, other than going to Mass together that evening, we didn't really spend too much time together.  We did do a lot of packing and such to get ready for the holidays.

Sunday 23 December 2012

We dedicated the Sunday to celebrating "Christmas Eve" with my family: my parents, my brother, and my grandfather.  We had our traditional Christmas breakfast which was a sausage-egg casserole.  My grandfather insisted on bringing over doughnuts.  We also delved in to fruit.  It was a lovely meal.  Afterwards, we sat around and talked.  I got a little emotional because it was hitting me that this year would be different than other Christmases (I am all about tradition), but my mother cheered me up.  We continued to play games, including a Dungeons and Dragons and Dominion, a family favorite.  We also opened gifts, since we open gifts on Christmas Eve and this was our "Christmas Eve celebration."  Of course, we poorly planned this, so I told my brother we would open presents on Christmas and so he didn't bring them.  That's okay, we still had 95% of our tradition.

I got two sweaters, a nutcracker (I get one every year, you'll see some from previous years in a picture above with the Christmas tree), and a few other things.  Stockings would be opened on Christmas.

Around 5pm we left for husband's parents' house where we would join his family (parents and one sister) and his sister's fiancé's family (the fiancé, two parents, and a brother).  We all had a nice dinner together then practically passed out after they left.

Monday 24 December 2012

We woke up and tried to settle when to open presents.  Mr. Charming was anxious to find out what his "special gift" was (the SodaStream since he didn't know yet).  I was anxious because I was going to fill up the containers and have them get chilly so that they would be ready for when we opened presents.  We finally decided we would do it before lunch and so we did.  We all gathered around the Christmas tree there and took pictures then sorted out everyone's presents and opened them.  I asked for (and received): the Star Wars complete saga on Blu-Ray, a fireproof safe, and a jar of marmite.  I also got a nice little tea pot with flowering teas, a can of Haggis, and a few other little lovely items.

One thing I do every Christmas for our families is make a calendar from Shutterfly.  It's always a huge success.  Husband's parents insist that is all they need.  So, of course, I gifted a calendar to husband's parents, my parents, and husband's sister.  I also gifted a photobook from the wedding to everyone.

Then, we proceeded to eat lunch, hang out, go to Christmas mass, then play some games on husband's Xbox Kinect (tennis, darts, skiing, zumba).  

Tuesday 25 December 2012

After a fourth night of getting very little sleep, I woke up not feeling so well and was thus lagging a bit.  But sister-in-law's fiancé and my father-in-law were making cinnamon roll waffles and that might just be two of my favorite breakfast items combined in to one so I had plenty of motivation to cheer up.  We had breakfast, packed the cars with our stuff, and left.  It was time for husband and I and his sister and her fiancé to head off to our families.  It was a great few days with them, and now we were headed to spend more time with my family.  Because even though we are much closer to my family, we still rarely have quality time with them.

At my parents' my brother came early to set up my mom's presents.  Since he's a boy, he didn't really wrap presents, but I was totally okay with that, because that's his character.  I had two things on my Christmas wish list for him (because my brother always wants to give me technology and this year there was absolutely nothing that I needed in terms of technology so I wanted to give him an idea of what I actually want and need).  The list consisted of an Erin Condren notebook (with line item instructions) and an Epiphanie camera bag.  Fortunately, he bought me the latter (I had changed my about which planner style I wanted after I gave him the wishlist).

We then proceeded to eat dinner when my grandfather arrived and then when he left afterwards we played a few rounds of 7 Wonders, one of husband and my's favorite games.

Then it was bed time.  It was an exhausting long weekend.

Wednesday 26 December 2012

Husband got the opportunity to work from home so when he finished up all his work we watched the first two movies in the Star Wars saga (Episode I & Episode II -- we went in order of the story, but I am so excited to get to IV-VI).