In the past, Dan and I have been able to spend Christmas with both sides of our family. His family always does their big Christmas celebration on Christmas Eve, and my side on Christmas Day, so it works out perfectly. It's definitely such a blessing that both sides of our family celebrate in upstate NY!
This year was different for many reasons. But since we were celebrating on our own this year, I realized that we could go to our first candlelight Christmas Eve service at church. And so we did. And it was really nice.
We spent Christmas Eve evening with our friends Kelly and Andy and their adorable son Andrew. We're so thankful for their friendship. I love the background story, too. It really is a crazy, small world. One of my coworkers in Erie knew Kelly from high school (I believe) and knew that they had just moved to Hawaii and that Andy was also in the Army, so she passed along Kelly's contact info incase we had any questions. Boy, did we have questions! Kelly and Andy were such a huge resource for us. And they graciously answered all of our questions/emails. They have two labs, so they shared info about shipping a dog to Hawaii. They shipped both cars, and we ended up using the same company they did for our second vehicle. I can't express how comforting it was to talk to someone who had just been through the big move we were preparing for.
Anyways, back to Christmas Eve. We ate dinner at their place and then went to church for the service.
It was a really special service and time together. My favorite part was the Christmas hula that the little girls of the church performed. Absolutely adorable (sadly, no pictures of them).
After the service, we parted ways and headed back home. I got in my Christmas pajamas, obviously (Dan saved his for Christmas morning, don't worry). Then we each picked one gift to open, and Dan started cooking the famous DiBlasi Sauce for Christmas Day. The last time we made "the" sauce was with our friends Brooke and Freeland (see here). We thought of them and wished they were with us this time, too.
Sydney, of course, didn't leave his feet...just incase something were to fall on the ground. It simmered all night. The house smelled delish!
While Dan was cooking (I helped a little), I was playing around with the settings on my camera and took lots of pictures of our Christmas tree.
While Dan was cooking (I helped a little), I was playing around with the settings on my camera and took lots of pictures of our Christmas tree.
To make it feel more magical and Christmas-like, I added snow (again). And yes, I know it doesn't snow inside, but we can pretend the snow is outside of the window.
We had a wonderful, low-key Christmas Eve and enjoyed a lot of quality time just the two of us. But we definitely missed celebrating with our families. Hopefully we'll be closer to everyone next year!
Keep Smiling...