A very Merry Christmas

Today was supposed to be my big Christmas wrap up post, complete with tons of pictures.....but, I left my camera at my parents house last night and since I plan on spending today in my pj's and not leaving the house, the pictures will have to wait. I am heading to my parents later this week, so my camera and glass bowl will be retrieved and a post full of pictures will occur after that.

We had a very nice, quiet Christmas this year. No big huge family celebration, just smaller gatherings at my parents. I spent Christmas Eve day baking muffins, gingerbread and chocolate goodies to take to my parents and did a last minute run to Target, before heading to dinner at my parents. It was just my me and Shawn, my parents, Kellie and my uncle Steve for a Christmas eve dinner of meatballs (not for me), crab legs, mashed potatoes, green beans and lefse...a somewhat traditional Norwegian dinner. We enjoyed some Christmas Cosmos made by my sister and a couple bottles of wine. After opening some presents, we ate some yummy gingerbread and whipped cream.

As for gifts, in my family, we usually take turns (oldest to youngest or youngest to oldest), each person opens one gift at a time and we circle around until the gifts are gone. This year we didn't have tons of gifts, because my parents decided not to exchange gifts with each other (although they both broke this rule) and alot of stuff was saved for stockings, which we opened on Christmas morning.

The big gift, a joint present for me and Shawn (although Shawn has already proclaimed it his) was this lovely weber grill. Shawn and I have been wanting to buy a grill for awhile, so this was a great gift.

I also got a cute new shirt from my parents, an Anthropologie gift card from Shawn, a red purse (one I almost bought for myself from Forever 21), several new shirts and a framed picture from our wedding from Kellie.

Christmas morning Shawn and I opened the rest of the presents under our tree and I got more Anthropologie gift cards, Christmas dessert plates I was secretly coveting, a cute ornament and dish towels from Ellen, a cozy throw blanket from Shawn's grandparents, adorable tank tops and a Starbucks gift card from Nicole, an autographed Ali E book, starbucks card and super cute mini album from Jessie and in my stocking from Shawn I had a porcupine ornament (he's been calling me porcupine lately) and a lump of coal...lovely right? Really it was lump of coal candy from Restoration Hardware, but it's okay because I found lump of coal bubble gum for his stocking!

After opening these presents, we got ready to head to my parents to spend the day. We had a nice brunch with my parents, sister and grandparents of egg casseroles, pumpkin muffins, berries and cream and Roederer Champagne with chambord...YUM! After brunch, we opened stockings and presents with my grandparents. I got another shirt, a silver and pearl necklace, a book and starbucks and i-tunes gift cards in my stocking. We had intended to go to an afternoon movie, but it was almost 2pm by the time my grandparents left, so we ended up just hanging out. Shawn and Kellie took naps, my poor dad had to head out on what he has since termed "egg hunting" to find eggs for a pie my mom was making and I chopped veggies for dinner and did some knitting. For dinner we had my mom's famous gumbo, which was delicious, more champagne and wine for Christmas toasting and chocolate cherry pie for dessert.

All in all we had a wonderful holiday! I hope all of you had a very Merry Christmas as well.