Christmas!! Day 25!

As I mentioned before I got a little carried away taking pictures and have almost 200 just from Christmas Day!! I photograph everything:) The hard part is always deciding which pictures to print and use. As I have been putting my album together I have switched a few things around and had an extra envelope that was not used on a previous day that I will be utilizing for day 25! I think I am going to put together a mini album featuring the hightlights of the entire day. (at least one picture form all of our Christmas visits) For now I will share our favorite gifts.

My sister's favorite happens to be the scrapbook I made her. I had no idea what to get her so simply relied on my hobby to pull me through! She joyfully exclaimed "It's all about me!?" when she pulled it out of the box!! I laughed as I brethed a sigh of relief! She can be picky so I wasn't so sure that she'd like it. She had me in stitches with her comments all the way through the book! It was a simple All about me alphabet book, easy to make when time is not on my side. She made it to page 'Y', before asking Is this an alphabet book? LOL, she just got caught up looking at pictures I'm sure she forgot I had taken!

My favorite gift? A remote control Black Widow spider. There is something about receiving toys for Christmas!! Makes me feel young. As odd as it may seem, I just loved it!!! I have always liked spiders, so when I saw this in the ToysRUs toy catalog, i jokingly said that would be so much fun! Christmas morning I scanned the gifts under the tree and didn't see any "spider" sized boxes. Oh well, I'm too old for toys anyway. However, much to my delight the box was not the expected shape!!!! Guess they were heard me after all, I was so excited! I played (and annoyed all) for so long I wore out the batteries!

DD: Day 24

I know I am way behind but this week has been crazy like for me. I took SOO many pictures Dec. 24-25 that sorting, printing, and posting has been quite a lengthy process.

There are many Christmas Eve traditions here at our house. One of which is my sister and I wrapping all the gifts we bought and placing them under the tree (yes before Santa comes). I look forward to spending that time with my sister making sure we got everything for everyone and laughing at each others wrap jobs. She of course is a professional, having done gift wrapping while she worked at Macy's.

DD: Day 23

It's the night before the night before Christmas!!!! Yeah! I was totally in the christmas spirit today (to the extent I think I was drivin g everyone else crazy!!)

I only took this one shot today. Its our company at our Christmas luncheon today. I just love this picture!

My boss' 6 year old son (pictured in the front) came into my office at about 1145 asking "Do you want to go to lunch with me and my dad? If you do you need to sign my paper and be in the parking lot at noon!" He carried around a sheet of notebook paper that each employee had to sign, if your name's not on the list you can't go he informed me as I signed. About 5 minutes later he came back in and informed us "We are leaving a little behind schedule. We are leaving exactly. . .right now!" We all started cracking up at the matter of factness in his mixed up statement, but promptly shut down our computers grabbed our stuff and headed for the parking lot. Each year our boss takes us to the country club for a Christmas Eve luncheon, but there had been a lot of rumors and grumpy attitudes coming from upper management that it was not going to happen this year! I was pleasantly surprised to learn that he was carrying on his little luncheon tradition. The picture was taken after lunch at the country club. Many coworkers complianed at the idea of having to be a part but everyone participated and several asked for a copy. I am so glad it all turned out so well!!

DD: Day 22

Christmas cards!! Of course I had to dedicate a page to all the beautiful cards my family has received. I snapped a quick shot before grabbing the stack out of the mailbox! I love getting the mail this time of the year!!


PS. To all my wonderful crafty friends, THANK YOU for all your amazingly gorgeous cards, I can't decided if I want to include them in my album to look at each year or hang them on my inspiration board!! You are all so very talented!!

DD: Day 21

Not only is today the 1st day of winter, here at the Nichols' house it is Christmas bread day!!! Every year my mom makes homemade bread for all our neighbours! (and us too!) It's such a fun little tradition that she does every year. I unfortunately had to work and was upset that I wouldn't get any pictures to document this awesome tradition. However, my wonderful mom took pictures for me!! She took pictures of each little step! I was so excited and so proud of her (she is not the picture person and usually can't even remember how to work the camera!) She did awesome though!!!! And now I have all these awesome pics to document her fabulous Christmas bread tradition!

DD: Day 20

After the crazy busy weekend all I wanted to do tonight was relax and hang out at home. My sister and I needed a photo to add to my grandmother's gift so we just played around and had a mini photo shoot. You can see that we were having a blast and cracking up in most of the shots. What a fun yet totally relaxing afternoon/evening.

DD: Day 19

Today was our Christmas service. The church choir and orchestra presented Handel's Messiah. I am not one to take pictures during a service so I snapped this one before it began. I have bulletins, programs, and flyers for the cantata that I will be including on this page to compliment the picture. It was a beautiful program, they did a great job! I really enjoy the way they presented the selections. I love my church family and am glad that I was able to spend so much time with many of them this Christmas filled weekend!!!

DD: Day 18

Saturday night was our Sunday School Christmas party. We actually started the night off by going caroling to some of the families in our church, who we delivered trays of the cookies we had baked the night before. It was freezing but totally worth it! Instead of doing a pollyanna this year we all donated the money we would have spent on gifts for each other to one of the families we visited. What a blessing it was to be used of God to help the meet a need. Our small group donated $1025!!!! Exactly what they needed to cover some car issues they were having! What an awesome God we serve!! The rest of the evening was spent eating, hanging out, playing games, and ended with a testimony time. I love our group and had a fantastic night!

Our completed tray of cookies before we wrapped and delivered it!

Some friends just messin' around for the camera! Love these guys!

DD: Day 17

I know I am several days behind, it has been a super busy weekend!!! The last weekend before Christmas, filled with get-togethers, parties, programs, last minute everything. . . Friday night I had a cookie bake to go to. I have never done one before and was super excited!! It is so much more fun to bake Christmas cookies in a group. The craziness that comes with having that many people in the kitchen is great!!! I hope we have many more of these to come!

DD: Day 16

Our first snowfall! Unfortunately I was at work and missed most of it, but I really wanted to take some pics for my album. So out I ventured into the cold and dark when I got home. I must say the pictures aren't too bad considering it was so dark out!
It was just a dusting but its still our first snow!

DD: Day 15

As I was running some errands tonight I started to notice all the beautiful Christmas light everywhere. I wanted to stop and take some pictures, but it is pretty cold and windy here so I stayed all warm and cozy in my car! I did however snap this quick shot of my house when I got home. I just love looking at all the lights. Maybe one of these nights it won't be so cold and I can go back out and snap some of those gorgeously decorated houses!

DD: Day 14

I was inspired by Ali's page today about just taking some random snapshots of "Christmas" in my house. Here is some of what I captured:

DD: Day 13

Christmas cards and Christmas packages!! Wish I had thought to take the picture yesterday morning before I put half the cards in the mail! I didn't think about taking the picture til last night after I placed the package on the table with the remainig cards. I think it is a pretty good summary of just about every household this time of the year, a steady stream of mail in and out!!