Christmas

Well Christmas has officially come and gone. It was magical and spectacular as usual, filled with lots of family time, laughing and celebrating, great food, and gift-giving. :) Some of the highlights of this year's celebration include:

• church with my family....although it is not my church, it was still wonderous to hear the Christmas story with my family gathered 'round.
• Christmas Eve dinner consisting of Pizza Hut pizza and a delicious salad and the conversations held during dinner.
• Putting together a Harry Potter puzzle with my cousin Tony...I swear it was addicting!
• Coming home to our house all decorated and taking pictures in our Christmas outfits and with 2 rambunctious labs. What an adventure!
• Opening our annual christmas eve presents, pajamas! :) Mine are the best...they say "99% nice, 1% naughty" and they make me smile whenever I see them.
• Popping popcorn and playing Disney Scene It! while sitting in front of a cozy fire in the fireplace.
• Going to sleep knowing that when I wake up it would be Christmas....the feeling of joy and happiness is still with me as I anticipate this day every year.
• Waking up, knowing that it is Christmas and thinking about all the wonderful things that this day holds.
• Spending time with my family as we open presents...I think my favorite moments were when they opened the gifts from me....Dad opening his "Scarecrow" movie that I tracked down online, Mom opening her new mixer and the photo frame I altered for her bedroom, Renee opening her skillet (that she picked out) and not remembering what it was...so cute, and Zach opening his DVD series that I bought him. :)
• Opening my new scrapping toy....my Cricut Expression....which is a huge die-cutting tool for cutting out letters and shapes. Can you believe that was like my entire Christmas?
• Heading to Grandma's to eat a fabulous dinner and play Mexican Train Dominoes all afternoon.
• Going to see Marley and Me in the theaters. It was a fabulous movie, but a real tear-jerker...I cried and came out of the theater all puffy eyed.
• Coming home and scrapping my heart out while playing with my new toy! :)

I will always remember how awesome this day was, in spite of the not-so great things. Like dropping a jar of pickles on my finger...ouch! and being really mad at my camera because it will not work at all! I am going to take it in to our local camera shop this week and see if they can do anything for it. I am so fed up with it not working. It didn't work at all during our family Christmas party on Saturday so I got like 2 pictures, but then it worked fine at our other party on Sunday. Then today it doesn't work at all so I had to borrow my sister's camera....grrrrr. considering my camera is supposed to be top of the line....a digital SLR! Grrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!! It is just so frustrating. Well anyways, overall it was a great day and I know that even with the craziness, this Christmas was fabulous! :)