Thanksgiving/Christmas 2013

Thanksgiving was a little different, well, actually, a lot different for us this year.  Our oldest daughter, Amber, flew to Texas with her husband to spend time with his family.  Our youngest daughter, Brittney, couldn’t get the time off of work to make the long trip home, or so we thought.  On November 27, 2013, later in the evening, our doorbell rang.  My husband and I both looked at each other wondering who could be at our door after dark.  What a glorious surprise it was when we opened the door and our youngest daughter was standing there.  It was the most unplanned Thanksgiving for us, ever!  The only thing going for it in any type of preparedness was I had made some strawberry Jell-O earlier that day.  I wasn’t even sure what we would be having for our Thanksgiving where I thought it was only my husband and I, I didn’t even buy a turkey.  I had tried all week, looking at our local grocery store in hopes of finding a turkey roll that I could cook for the two of us but there wasn’t anything.  So, when our daughter popped in unexpectedly, my first thought was total excitement and my second thought was…..oh, no….what are we going to have for our Thanksgiving meal.  When the time came, we ended up having canned ham topped with brown sugar and pineapple, fruit filled strawberry Jell-O, potatoes and gravy, green beans and biscuits…..by Candlelight!  It was a memorable, with no pictures (can you believe it) Thanksgiving that I will never forget!

Now, Christmas was a wonderful, planned event.  This year our plans were to travel to our daughter’s home in Rigby and spend Christmas with them.  Our youngest daughter also came up from Utah.  My husband was required to work Christmas Eve day so when he got off work, we drove to Idaho Falls and met up with both our daughters and our son-in-law.  It was a little after 7pm and we met at  Sharis for Christmas Eve dinner.  It was nice and relaxing and the meal was great.
 
After eating, we drove around looking at Christmas lights.  Our son-in-law knew of a home that had their light synchronized to music.  We parked at that home for approximately 20 minutes watching all the lights.  It was pretty awesome.
 
The next morning we got up to open our Christmas presents.  All I have here is a picture of the tree cause no one wanted their picture taken. 

My daughter and her husband have a nice home and it was just a comforting Christmas.    After opening presents Christmas morning, we ate a breakfast of scrambled eggs and monkey bread.  Who would of thought that those two combinations would work but for us, it was great.  After breakfast we all kind of did our own thing from naps, reading, talking and watching television movies.  For a late lunch, my son-in-law fixed a fabulous meal.  He’s a great cook.  We had ham with cloves, brown sugar, and pineapple – corn – rolls – funeral potatoes – apple pie and eggnog mixed with ginger ale.  I also made a pretzel jello salad and took it over.  All-in-all, it was a very memorable Christmas!
Here are a few collages of our tree and decorations…………..



The following ornaments are my heart-felt ornaments.  They are ornaments that both my daughters made while still in their youth.  They are definitely my Christmas Treasures!

Each year, it is kind of my own personal tradition to make or purchase a new ornament for the tree.  This year I came across an ornament of a snowman made from an LED tea light.  I thought they were so cute so I went to creating.  For the nose, I purchased some orange fingernail polish and painted the light so it would look like a carrot nose.  I created the snowman by inserting shapes, drawing shapes and placing them into my Microsoft Office Word program.  I got the holly berry from Google Images.  I printed them on glossy photo paper, cut an “X” where the nose would be and slipped my snowman over the tea light.  Once I made my initial pattern, they came together pretty quickly.  I really enjoy creating things on the computer. – Fun!