Christmas

Well, I'm finally getting around to posting about Christmas! We had a great one! It was so fun to get our apartment all cute and decorated, shop for each other and our family members, and spend all of the Christmas season together.

We decided to open our stockings from each other on Christmas Eve morning, before we headed up to Alpine for the family Christmas festivities. Here they are...aren't they cute! We picked them out with Willie's mom as part of a 12 days of Christmas gift. She gave us a lot of super cute stuff to get us started with our Christmas decorations etc. Thanks, Jamie!

That afternoon we headed up to Alpine for a Christmas Eve program that Willie's family's ward does every year. It was really cute and a nice way to remember what Christmas is about. I really liked it a lot.

After that, we had a delicious dinner and had our own Christmas Eve program. Willie's family has a tradition of acting out the nativity every year. Since there were no grandkids visiting this year we did something different. Everyone picked a character from the nativity story and kind of researched them and shared what they learned. It was really nice! Then all of the kids opened a group gift, a game called Bang, and played. Games with the Matthews are some of my favorite times!

I couldn't get this picture to move up. This is a picture of Willie and I visiting with Grandpa Matthews earlier in the evening. It was so nice to be able to have him and Grandma Claire there with us! The next morning we woke up and opened our presents. I chose this picture so that you can't see me in all of my just-woken-up glory :)

We had a relaxing day lounging around, and then went and saw Gulliver's Travel's later that night. My family has a tradition of going to a movie on holidays, and it always makes me so happy to do that! It was super fun.

All in all, a great Christmas!

Here is a picture of our first Christmas tree!!!!! I love it so much. It made me so happy to have our own tree! One of my favorite things about Christmas is the lights glowing from the tree...it feels so cozy.

And, I ventured into advanced crafting and made these!! Haha I had told my friend Jenna that I loved these types of blocks but didn't know if I could do them. She assured me if wasn't hard at all, and I could. Then Kelli and I went to a crafting Relief Society activity and a girl had hers on display. We asked how she did them, and decided to do our own. It was so fun, and not hard at all! I was super happy with how they came out.

Anyway, hope you all had a very Merry Christmas, too!