We started celebrating with a few friends of ours from the west coast who came home for the Holidays. Jenny and Cara both live in L.A., are absolute sweethearts and we always make sure to get together when they come home.
We're a special group.
Sleepy? Nope...not Jenny (texting).
Christmas Eve
We kicked Christmas Eve off with our annual 5,000 Candles Candlelight Service. The entire congregation lights up as we sing Silent Night and it's a beautiful way to praise Jesus Christ.
After the service we headed over to our family friends for our annual Christmas Vacation Christmas Eve tradition. Ever since I can remember, my family has gotten together with the Blackmons and we bring in Christmas the best way we know how...by watching the movie Christmas Vacation
EVERY. SINGLE. YEAR.
Stahl and Blackmon Parents, festive as I'll get out:
Stahl Family:
We had a
YUM: Chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting, served with a side of Scott's banana/pumpkin bread...
...which ultimately lead to parking in front of the television and watching (not to mention quoting every line possible of) Christmas Vacation.
Scott still doesn't understand how we can watch the same movie every single year. The best part about it is that for majority of the movie we're walking around the house not even paying attention and out of nowhere someone will hear a part coming up and re-enact the entire scene wherever we are. True story.
Christmas Day
I woke Scott up on Christmas Morning with these banana pancakes. Go ahead, say it out loud..."he's a lucky man."
After opening some presents from Scott's family that was under the tree we spent our first Married Christmas exactly where we got married: our church, First Orlando. I was excited to get to go to a Sunday Service with him (since I usually work), and Christmas Day was a perfect way to kick off my new availability to attend services on Sundays.
After service, we came home to change and Scott surprised me with some pretty outrageous stocking stuffers. I know Santa wasn't responsible for this one because everything in them was something funny from Japan.
Yeah, my husband is quite the funny man...or at least he thinks so.
After laughing until we cried at some of the stuff in my stocking (more details and pictures coming soon) we packed up our gifts and headed over to my sister's house.
Once we got there, I realized I forgot my camera and decided to spend more of my time with family over taking pictures anyways. I loved seeing my niece and nephew and all of their new presents.
I guess you can say they've accepted Scott into our family...
Christmas dinner at my sister's has traditionally been lasagna. She makes a mean meaty lasagna and cooks a second veggie lasagna, just for my mom. One of these days I'm going to have to share a picture of it...because it's seriously some of the best lasagna I've ever had.
In lieu of showing you pictures from Christmas Day
Scott's mom had this ornament made for us, and got the idea off of Pinterest.
I LOVE this. It says HBSH on the front, has a dangling cross just like the ones from our Handfasting Cord, and the inside is filled with shreds of our wedding invitation.
Isn't that cool?!
Scott's dad also gave us something pretty special. Kirk and Kay live in Powell, Missouri on what you could consider a farm land. They grow some of their own herbs and this year decided to package them up for Christmas gifts.
We also got a really nice Wusthof Cutting Knife, which we were pretty excited about!
There were several things we really enjoyed, but nothing really beats these:
Baby pink "UGGs" complete with a pregnancy test. Do you think they're trying to hint towards something?! I just about died laughing when I saw this duo. Nevertheless, the boots are adorable and I'm sure they will come in handy in the future.
For now, I'll stick with the slippers Becky gave me.
For those of you who celebrate Christmas, I hope you had a weekend filled with chocolate cupcakes, family, movies and fuzzy slippers also.
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Merry Kwanzaa and a Happy New Year to you too!
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