(I hope you all had) A Holly Jolly Christmas!

This is late, I know. I've been pretty busy lately, and have had no time to post. And, to be perfectly honest, I haven't had much to say. I do have lots of pictures to share, though.

I know I posted a blog once about our Christmas tree, but I can't help it. Mike and I BOTH love this tree! It's perfect! It has the perfect shape. It has filled our home with its WONDERFUL fragrance. It has the best ornaments. It also has great lights. The best part about it is that we picked it out ourselves, cut it down, and brought it home. Our favorite tree ever.

I absolutely LOVE these ornaments that we have all around the top of the tree. I found these at Bradley's. They are classic, simple, sparkly, and the sentiments on them are perfect! Not to mention, Joy and the whole staff at Bradley's are SUPER great and just genuinely fabulous people! :)




These are just a couple of favorite pictures that I took. (The ONLY way to take a BAD picture with a digital camera is to not take enough pictures! I'm not wasting film or money, so I have learned to snap, snap, snap.....I'm bound to get a few great shots!



These two are pics of ornaments my mom got us for Christmas a couple of years ago. She picked them up when her and my dad visited Biltmore in NC. I thought they were cute!

Here is a picture of Blossom sitting in front of the tree. I tried and tried and tried to get one of Biscuit in front of the tree, JUST to post on here, but it just didn't happen. Biscuit does love wrapping paper, so I snapped this one while I was wrapping a few gifts.



It doesn't stop there. I want to share some pics of festivities leading up to Christmas.
The weekend before Christmas, I made some cracker candy. This stuff is DE-LISH! If you love sweet and salty together, THIS is the candy for you! If you're interested, email me and I'll send the recipe! It's SUPER simple to make too! ALSO in one of the pictures below is a sampling of the Christmas cards I made this year. To those of you who received one, I hope the rhinestones weren't peeking out of the envelope like they were on my sisters. OOPSIE.


The Monday before Christmas, Trans-Siberian Orchestra was in town! If you have NEVER seen them, I HIGHLY recommend purchasing tickets for next year! This was the first time we have ever seen them. The musicians were the best we have EVER seen! Literally! The light show was out of this world! The music (which I guess could be considered part of the musician comment) was extraordinary! The show was phenomenal!!!! WELL worth the money! Heck, it was worth FAR MORE than the ticket price, that is for sure!

There was also an added bonus for this show! My friend Ronnie (okay, now that we're grown-up's he prefers being called Ron), that I have known since I was 5 years old was on this tour. He's a drum tech and was honored to be chosen to go on tour with this fabulous group of musicians! Sooooo, added bonus, I got to meet up with him before the show for a little bit. It was so great to see him! It was fun catching up, and it was even better seeing what a great job he does for TSO! Here's a picture of us.

After the show, I snapped this of downtown.

Wednesday was here before I knew it. I had TONS of work to do. And the ONLY picture I took of anything in the kitchen were the lemon drops I made. Before icing. After icing. They were SO YUMMY! Thanks to JoAnne and Mary for letting me borrow their mini-muffin pans!!!!

I was so tired by the time dinner was finished, that I completely forgot to take pictures of the final dinner results! :( I did, however, take a picture of the dining room, ready for the guests to arrive. **Note - It was SOOOO warm out Wednesday, that we opened up all the windows. :)


After dinner, we opened up all the presents that were under the tree (there were more under there once the family arrived, but this is the only picture I took of the tree on Christmas Eve night). The only present that would have made this night TRUELY complete was if my mom was able to come! She has not been feeling well lately, and it was pretty sad not having her with us on Christmas Eve. We were able to spend Christmas Day with her, at my parents house, which was REALLY special and nice!
It was a GREAT evening spent with family, reflecting on great times throughout the year and years past, and remembering THE reason for Christmas, Jesus!


I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!!!!!
XOXOXOOO
JANET!

Another oopsie! I just realized I didn't post any pics of Mike on here! :( Maybe I'll do that later. Sorry, honey.