An Unconventional Christmas

Christmas was a little different for us this year. It was the first time we spent Christmas in Colorado...without the company of our families. We sure did miss seeing everyone, but at the same time it was nice to not have to deal with the annual "juggling of the families".

Our Christmas Eve was actually spent going to church. I felt a little guilty for not going to Christmas Eve church for the past, oh, six or seven years, and luckily my guilt wore off onto Greg and he went with me! From there, we went to the bar. (That's not bad is it?) We had a good evening visiting with friends and the bar owner, who also happens to be our neighbor!

Christmas morning I woke up bright and early and made us a batch of cinnamon streussal muffins. YUM! Afterwards, we opened the few presents we received from family members and then we just lounged around. For our Christmas lunch I prepared an awesome meal of ham, baked potatoes, and squash. OK, I'm exaggerating just a little. I burned the squash. And I didn't really cook the ham. It was left over from my company Christmas party that I took home, froze, and re-heated in the microwave. It was still good nevertheless!

After lunch we hit the road to go to Colorado Springs! I cannot tell you how much I am in love with the Springs! Put me in any big city and I am a happy camper! But add beautiful Pikes Peak to the background and it's the cherry on top of a sundae! (Even though I don't like cherries on sundaes, but you get the point!) One of my friends here in Lamar had graduated from college in Springs the week before and she's already moved back to Lamar but has her apartment until February. So she gave us the keys and let us stay there for free! It was awesome!

It may sound crazy, but I absolutely love going to a movie on Christmas. So we did just that! We watched Sherlock Holmes, which in my opinion was not that great, then luckily we found a Denny's that was still open for dinner. Afterwards, we went back to the apartment and hit the sack! We had to prepare for our big day of shopping the next day!

Now, I know I've mentioned that I am not the shopping type. And I'm really not. But when I'm actually in the mood to shop and am mentally prepared for it; watch out! I was determined to find a lot of good post-Christmas deals! For instance, I wanted to buy stocking holders for our mantle, a cute stocking for Parker, a train to go chug-a-luging around the Christmas tree, outdoor LED Christmas lights, and some Christmas books for Parker for next year since they would be half off! Needless to say, I was pumped!

Unfortunately, all of my dreams went bust. The only good deal I got was on 4 Christmas stocking holders (One for me, Greg, Parker, and Shady!) at Hobby Lobby. Other than that I couldn't find any of the other items I had in mind. And get this: Christmas books never go on sale. They just package them up and return them to the vendors to re-sell the next year. Darn! OH, and here's a cute story about Greg! When I told him I wanted to buy Christmas books he said, "We already have one." My response was, "Yeah, one! We need more". He argued that the baby won't even know what we're reading to him anyway. I beg to differ, but I also had to clue him in to the fact that I'm not going to want to read the same book every single night! *sigh* You gotta love my husband!

Luckily, we were able to get some fun kitchen decor at Hobby Lobby, made a Home Depot and a Lowe's run (our kitchen now has cabinet hardware!) and my first ever trip to Motherhood where I got a good deal on two cute sweaters!

The day was topped off with dinner at The Elephant Bar where we shared an amazing blueberry apple cobbler after dinner! The next day we loaded up everything and came home.

All in all, our Christmas was pretty enjoyable. However, I absolutely cannot wait for Christmas next year! I'll finally have a home to decorate that (hopefully) won't be under construction, and it will be Parker's first Christmas!!!