Our Christmas 2013

Well hello... did you think I had fallen off the planet?

Sorry for the radio silence around here, but I did enjoy the little blog break! Since I just know that you missed me so much, I'm going to share all about our Christmas. It was a quiet, subdued Christmas which was actually nice! I was quite bummed that we would miss out on going up to the mountains to be with my grandparents and cousins, but we made the best of it and enjoyed a Texas Christmas. 

First things first was to take our family friend who was visiting from Canada to the Christmas capital of Texas (otherwise known as Downtown Grapevine)

Every year, it's all decked out for the holidays and is actually pretty breathtaking!

My mom and Cate (the Canadian) had fun and I was the impromptu photographer for the evening. 

I should also note that we were freezing our tails off (even the Canadian said it was cold... now that's saying something!)

Then, Christmas eve, we had my brother and his wife over for our traditional festivities. Since they were going out of town to be with her family on Christmas day, they got to open all their presents on Christmas eve! It was fun getting to see them open their gifts, but it also made me want to open mine! 

Luckily, as our tradition goes, we all get to open one present on Christmas eve. And in all my 20 years, it has always been the same: new pajamas!

After we posed for some interesting pictures, we all hopped in the car with our hot chocolate and went Christmas light looking! This is something we've been doing since as long as I can remember. We all pile in the car, sometimes with some hot chocolate, and drive to a bunch of different neighborhoods to look at the lights. 

Here are some pretty ones we saw:

Of course we have to visit The Tree.  Now, if you are from around here (which most of you aren't) then you know about the tree.  Now, I kid you not, the tree is the most beautiful thing on this planet.
The tree is out in the middle of nowhere, but you can see it from miles away.

Now, the tree is almost virtually impossible to take pictures of and the pictures you do get hardly do it justice. 

But in the middle of nowhere is the most beautiful oak tree with I swear every darn branch is filled with lights. It literally is the most stunning thing anyone has ever seen. 

Again, pictures do not do the tree justice. 

Christmas morning came and it's so funny because I remember being little and it was literally a race to see who could wake up faster. My brothers and I would wake up around 5 am and go get my parents, only for them to tell us that we have to wait for the sun to come up. 

(Our tree this year!)

Now it's so different as we have gotten older. We all woke up around 9ish and didn't even begin opening gifts until 11. I swear adult life stinks! 

For the rest of the day, we watched all the obligatory movies (Elf, Christmas with the Kranks, A Christmas Story, etc) and then enjoyed another feast (complete with my mom's famous 5 cheese mac & cheese)

 Good thing the holidays are almost over, I think my scale might break!

Of course we ended the night watching my favorite movie ever, Christmas Vacation. Tis the season to be merry! (well that's my name!)


I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and an even better New Year.

Auld Lang Syne!