Christmas festivities

Most of my favorite memories of growing up are centered around our Christmas traditions. Baking and decorating sugar cookies, meeting Santa, getting dressed up in pretty new dresses (usually made by mom), putting up Christmas lights, drinking hot chocolate after playing in the snow... While playing in the snow is not possible here in Florida and I was very lazy this year and never got a dress made for Rosemary (sad, I know) we did manage to get in the Christmas spirit and create some new traditions of our own! Because there are going to be so many pictures, I'm making then small. Click on them for a larger view.


While we may not get real snow, a Chik-Fil-A up the road goes all out with holiday decorations, including snow machines! So I guess this counts as Rosemary's first snowfall ;) She was pretty excited!!!!
Every year, my mom has at least one homemade Christmas present for everyone in the family. I try to do the same. This year I got Rosemary into the action by taking her to a paint-your-own pottery studio. Here she is painting a ceramic tray for all Joe's shaving needs. He uses an old fashioned straight-razor with all the accoutrements (shaving mug, razor, etc) and it takes up a lot of room on the bathroom counter. Now he has a nice way to store everything complete with art work by his little girl!

One of my favorite things to do growing up was to make cookies to leave out for Santa. I cheated a little this time and bought ready-made sugar cookie dough. I won't make that mistake again! They spread way too much and some of the cookies lost their shape. Luckily, I didn't cheat on the frosting- homemade all the way! Even though the cookies themselves weren't what I remember from childhood, the frosting saved them and brought me back to a much simpler time! I know, I sound old.



Knowing we were going to be gone for most of the holiday season, it was really important to me to have the inside of our house decorated while we were home. So before we left for our Thanksgiving/West Virginia trip we put out our Christmas tree and set out some decorations. I added Rosemary's name to her stocking before she was born. We don't have a fireplace, therefore no mantle, so I made do the best I could. I ended up changing the decorations on our entertainment unit. My mom gave me part of a Christmas village (including a State College, like where I met Joe, a candle shop, a church, and a train depot) so I put that up. I didn't get a picture of it, though, so I posted a picture of my first attempt with the candles and nutcrackers! Rosemary put the first ornament on the tree. It's not upside down. That's how she put her little ducky ornament from her first Christmas.

Those are some of the pictures I have of our pre-Christmas celebration! Next up will be pictures of our actual Christmas in Jacksonville. That might be another long post! I might be finished with all of our December activities before the next new year!