Late December Post

Somehow December came and went.

I had a goal of finishing (the majority of) Christmas shopping and decorating the house by the first weekend of December, so we could spend family time enjoying our time and celebrating the holiday season. And I did it! But...I didn't feel like I had a break until three days before the New Year. For those three days, I did almost nothing. And it was pretty great.

We ran into Santa while picking a Christmas Tree!

We went to tree lightings, Christmas caroling, and (free!) carriage rides!

Cuties

We spent the day in Richmond with some family friends. There was a Christmas festival going on at Maymont, so we stopped by for live music, period costumes, ponies, beautiful scenery (and great company!) and a tour of the mansion.

Lots of great trees to climb!

E and her little helper

We hit the Botanical Garden at night, finally! I've been wanting to go for a long time. It made for a pretty late evening, and it was COLD. Still fun, though.

Viv loved the Rainbow Tunnel

We made ornaments and cookies. We played games and decorated the tree (again, with Elena doing all her own walking and hanging!). We watched The Nutcracker and played with friends. We played our favorite holiday tunes (A Christmas Together (John Denver and the Muppets) is our favorite next to Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker). We saw lots of Christmas lights. The weather was unusually warm...we joked about sunbathing for Christmas.



And the Tooth Fairy was pretty busy during December too.

Smiles

We had a wonderful time celebrating with family. Jason and I spent a lot of time cooking, so most of my pictures have an apron. Here's me trying a jelly bean in our Jelly Belly Flavor Challenge game. 

"Baby Wipe" flavor. Not good.

And since I spent all Christmas Day making it, here's my Bûche de Noël. How does it look, mes amis?

Recipe from Bon Appétit. Yum!