Christmas part I

A few weeks after Thanksgiving my family came up to celebrate "Our Christmas".  I had to work on Christmas day, so we decided we'd celebrate a bit early!  Mom and dad came up on a Thursday night and got to stay for the weekend.  I welcomed them home with a hot bowl of chili and cornbread!

On Friday Stuart arrived!  Since I'm writing this post about a month out, I can't remember exactly, but it was either Friday or Saturday that we drove out "into the country" to go get a Christmas tree.  I was a little bummed about working on Christmas and not having our usual family traditions, and I had decided earlier that maybe I just wouldn't even put up a tree.  I'm glad the fam convinced me otherwise!  The drive out to the Christmas tree farm was beautiful, and of course full of good conversation.  I was almost giddy with excitement over actually cutting our first Christmas tree!  Fresh trees are hard to come by in south Alabama, so we always cheated and got one at Lowes.  But this year was the real deal!

Road out in the Sticks to the Christmas Tree Farm

We got our own little tree wagon and walked out to the farm!  

Nothing like a wagon ride on a December afternoon

After a good 30 minutes of hunting we found the perfect tree!  Not too tall, and pleasingly plump.

And when I said "we" cut down a tree, I meant Stuart cut down a tree

With dad's help of course!

Timber!

Mom and I watched at a safe distance from the dull saw and cheered on our husbands.  It was hard work for us too!

The final trimming of the tree

Leaving with our first fresh-from-the-farm tree

It turns out that getting the tree may have been the easy part.  The hard part was getting it up 4 flights of stairs, into an apartment, and then decorating it.  Decorating it was difficult because apparently farm fresh trees have REALLY prickly needles!  Fortunately Stuart was patient with my sensitive skin, and we got the tree decorated.  We don't have a lot of ornaments at this point.  I'm not the type for matchy-matchy ornaments.  I'd rather have sentimental ones that we collect along the way. So short marriage so far = not a lot of Christmas decor!

Personal Protective Equipment

One of my faves.  A Moravian star that we picked up when I did  a month rotation in Winston-Salem, NC

Mardi even helped us find all the ladybugs in the tree

You can't decorate a Christmas tree without a good Christmas dinner!  I had been craving chicken pot pie for a while, so decided to make it from scratch (without cream of chicken soup, thank you).  Mom helped me in the kitchen, dad napped on the sofa, and Stuart and Winston relaxed and caught up on our Bon Apetit magazines while they waited.

The Spread.  Chicken pot pie, salad, biscuits, and chocolate bourbon pecan pie!

 Then after dinner Santa came!

Reese's Trees are an integral part of any Christmas season

Pets are always helpful with preset opening

I'm willing to embarrass myself with this picture.  I got some good cold weather stuff!   Ignore the loud pants please.

We got dad this really awesome pair of dress pants, but apparently the size label was incorrect because they obviously did not fit.  He was looking like a fool with his pants on the ground!  No worries, we swapped them later.

And mom got an earring surprise!

So glad my parents could come up for Christmas, even if it was a few weeks early.  I'm so blessed to have such wonderful Godly parents and I'm glad theyre willing to drive up to Virginia to see us!

Next up, Christmas part 2!