This year I half solved the problem by cutting back. Christmas decorations? Only put out about half of them...my favourites. All the others stayed in their bins. And it still looks completely festive around our house. See? ...
(This is what happens when you enlist the help of your boys to wash and dry dishes... santa appears!)
Keith found he had a few extra holidays that he hadn't taken this year. Nice! He took the first Friday off in December (7th) and after we shipped Max off to school, the two of us went on a Christmas shopping date. We started and finished our Christmas shopping and then had a quick lunch at Williams before heading back to school to pick up Max. That was a very productive day!
(Yummy lunch at Williams.)
Gingerbread house making (not baking) took place on Saturday, Dec 8. I'm a big fan of the gingerbread kits you can buy. This years was a bit different even though it was the Wilton brand I usually pick up at Michaels. Pros and cons...A big pro this year, the icing was pre-mixed in the bag. You just had to snip open the end and start icing. That is a pro because I generally make the icing too thin and then it takes forever to harden. This icing was the perfect consistancy and hardened super quick.
The big con? VERY skimpy on the candies used to decorate. Less than half of what they usually include. So I ended up running out to the store to get some extras. To be fair, they included fondant icing this year. But I'm not good at that type of thing and it just didn't scream gingerbread candy house to us so we ditched the fondant and went with candy candy candy...
Saturday evening (Dec 8) was the annual NAC Christmas Party. This year it was held at the Hockley Valley Resort near Orangeville. The venue and food were FABULOUS. I would say that it ranks up there with the better Christmas parties that we've been to.
Just before we were leaving...
Max was in charge of taking the photos of us. He likes the very unposed style...
Could not find anything to wear. Wasn't for lack of trying either. Seems to be the story of my life every year. ;) But seriously, this year was just really ughhhhh. So I went with an el cheapo (emergency) dress that I had found in Buffalo, NY. Exactly purchased for such emergencies. For $45 I'm not going to complain too much as I'm only wearing it once. But still....wasn't a fan of the dress. At all.
We dropped off Max at my parents on the way to the party and he stayed overnight with them. Aunt Vanessa snapped this photo and emailed it to us during the party. ;)
Sunday (Dec 9th) found me sneaking in some last minute photos of Heather after church. Nothing like leaving it until the last minute. The weather was N-A-S-T-Y. Cold east wind. Half raining/icing. We were absolutely freezing. We initially planned to do photos of her with her new truck. But...the wind was just howling and not cooperating. So we got a couple below but they weren't what we were looking for. So we found the most sheltered spot near the front porch and attempted to set a world record of seeing how fast we could get her photos taken. It was fast. And then we went indoors and found some warm air registers to thaw out.
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