Christmas Decorations!

I should have written this post a long time ago!  Sorry for the delay but Christmas and New Years were CRAZY!  I was super excited to decorate our apartment for Christmas!  I really enjoyed bringing out all the stuff that have been in boxes for a few years and see them around our apartment.  

I LOVE our stockings!  I searched high and low for stockings that I really liked because we plan on keeping them for a LONG time.  My parents gave me some money for my birthday to get stockings and I finally found some at the Hallmark store!  

This is the only picture I have of our snowman!  Jake was leaving for a hunting trip one day after he got home from work.  He propped his gun up in the living room and when I woke up I sent him a picture text message and said that our snowman was ready for the hunting trip too! The puppy on the corner of our TV stand was given to me by my uncle Jimmy 2 years ago. 

This little reindeer was given to my parents by my Uncle Jimmy.  They no longer put the reindeer out and asked me if I wanted it.  I of course said YES!  (For those of you who do not know, my Uncle Jimmy passed away in July so these items are very special to me!)

 I just love a tree that has presents under it!  Oh how I loved decorating for Christmas this year and look forward to it for many years to come!

Wordless Wednesday: Trigger in Front of the Christmas Tree

Christmas Goodies

 Every year at Christmas, my mom, Granny, and I get together and make homemade Christmas goodies.  We eat these goodies from a few days before Christmas until they are GONE which is normally after New Years.  We definitely have our family favorites.  We enjoy orange balls, peanut brittle, peanut butter squares, spoon dipped chocolate fudge, peanut butter pinwheels, and many others!  I love this time that I get to spend with my mom and granny!  Family traditions are so much fun and one of my favorite things about the holidays!

 Pouring the chocolate to make the peanut butter squares

 Granny is rolling up the peanut butter pinwheels, and I am smoothing out the chocolate on top of the peanut butter squares

  Licking spatulas! Does this ever get old??

We had such a fun time together!  Already looking forward to next year!

Christmas Dishes

Growing up, starting the day after Thanksgiving we put our regular dishes away and started using our Christmas dishes for a month!  I could not WAIT to bring OUR Christmas dishes out and use them for the first time!  My dishes are special to be because my Granny has given me something for my kitchen every year since I was born.  I have had my Christmas dishes since I was in 6th grade and have never used them!   

 First dishwasher load of Christmas Dishes

Our first meal on our Christmas dishes!  Naturally it would be left over Ham from Thanksgiving!! 

I really look forward to using these all year round and for many years to come!

Our First Tree!!!

Oh the anticipation of decorating our first tree together!  Celebrating Christmas together is one of the things I looked forward to the most after getting married.  I have been buying Christmas decorations for about four years after Christmas so we would be ready to decorate our first place together.  We decided to keep some of both of our families traditions while decorating.  We had Chili for dinner, goodies while we decorated, played Christmas music, hung ornaments that were special to jake and me, and enjoyed time together!  

First we had to pick out our tree!  We chose to go to a small Christmas tree lot near our apartment and we had so much fun trying to decided which tree would fit best in the space we had picked out!

 Chili is our Christmas Bowls

 Christmas Goodies:  Christmas M&Ms (Peanut and Plain), Marshmallows, peanuts, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Cinnamon Rolls, Mellow Yellow, and Cherry Pepsi.  

 My handsome husband putting on the lights

 Finally time to decorate!! I really had fun decorating our first tree together in our PJs!  Oh how I love Christmas traditions we are creating together! 

The finished product!!!  I love the way our first tree turned out!!! 

Christmas Decorations

It is FINALLY after Thanksgiving and it is time to pull out the Christmas decorations!!!  I have been buying Christmas decorations after Christmas for the past 4 years and we are loaded!! I have not paid full price for any of my decorations and I am proud to say everything I bought was at least 50% off!  I did not realize how much space boxes full of Christmas decorations would take up until they were sitting in the middle of our floor in our apartment.  Here is the beginning of our Christmas decorating.... 

Once everything is up I'll post pictures of the finished product!