Christmas

Third married Christmas. 

First Christmas just the two of us (well, 3 including Sydney). 

On Christmas morning, we were blessed to open many thoughtful gifts. We had packages from our families and a few gifts for each other. Sydney, of course, had some things to open as well. And even without her gifts, she would have been perfectly content playing with the ribbons, bows, and paper from our gifts. 

After we opened presents and stockings (and cleaned up Sydney's wrapping paper mess), Dan made a delicious (and our third annual) Christmas morning brunch. I'm thankful I have a husband who loves to cook!

Apparently, almost everyone in Hawaii goes to the beach for Christmas, and we thought about it, but it was kind of a gloomy day.

So after brunch, we FaceTimed with almost everyone in our family and finished preparing the house for dinner. Normally, we just have the round table in our dining space (seats 4), but since we invited more than two people over, we brought in additional tables (the bistro table, which has been stored in our garage all year, and our outside patio table). It was crammed, but cozy. 

Then, that evening, we enjoyed a delicious Christmas dinner with friends at our house. Dan had invited some of the guys he works with - single guys and guys he knew that weren't going to be celebrating with family. A few close friends stopped by, too. The DiBlasi sauce was a hit! Sadly, I didn't take any pictures of the people, though.

Overall, it was a relaxing and special day, with old and new traditions. Merry Christmas!

Keep Smiling...

Christmas Eve

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.

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...

Christmas Pajamas

Yes, my family stills wears matching Christmas pajamas. every. year.

Yes, I realize the youngest person in our family is a 20-year-old-adult. 

Yes, I know that this tradition my seem childish or dorky or lame. 

Yes, I understand why some think this is extremely embarrassing. 

But, frankly, I don't care. 

I love the fact that our family still wears matching/coordinating Christmas pajamas every year. I love that my parents join in, too. I simply love traditions, and this is one of my personal favorites! 

Since this was our first Christmas away from home, I was a little worried about this tradition. But mom came through. She mailed us 3 packages for Christmas: one for Dan, one for me, and one for Syd that she instructed we could open on Christmas Eve because there was something we could wear that night. I knew exactly what that meant! So the tradition lives on, even though we matched from afar this year. 

For a few giggles, I thought I'd reminisce and share our pajama history starting with 2004 (because that's when I went "digital" and those are the oldest pictures I have on my computer).

[I apologize in advance, siblings.]

2004

2005

2006

2007

2008

2009

2010
(Our first married Christmas.  Dan is such a good sport and the best son-in-law!)

2011
(Yes, Jon's mustache is real.)

2012

Merry Christmas!

Keep Smiling...