Christmas-time (was) here.

Christmas has come and gone. my first married Christmas. it was bittersweet. it was good. it was a busy, full day of family and presents and good food and fun. there are pictures. (not many, cuz i found that i was enjoying myself too much to actually stop and take pictures of the day itself) (in later years, i might regret having so few pictures of our first married Christmas) but i will share with you the pictures that i did manage to snap in order to document the milestone.

 we figured that getting married and buying a house and moving to Maryland was plenty of excitement for one year, so instead of having a real live Christmas tree we opted to just pull out the itty bitty skinny Charlie Brown tree that was given to me by a friend from work to grace my apartment last year. the branches only go down about three quarters of the way, leaving the rest of the tree's trunk exposed. this makes it wonderful for fitting presents under, but then the big pile of presents under it makes it look even smaller and more ridiculous. we love it. we also learned this year that the fake snow on it that so wonderfully and festively sheds all over is called flocking. Mark now insists that our tree is indeed flocked up.

  to decorate our flocking tree, i pulled out all the ornaments that i have gotten every year (except that one) since i was born. and then we added some fun new ones this year...

the trifecta of cow ornaments from my mom was (finally!) completed to remind Mark of that one ice skating date we went on, and the adorable bride and groom couple is my reminder that 2010 was the year we got married!

 Mark's aunt got him a snowman ornament for his birthday for 'Our 1st Christmas Together' and the adorable birdhouse came from his mom for our 'New Home'

 as is customary christmas eve tradition we each opened one gift early and got two more ornaments :) our little amphibian bride and groom are keeping the ornament tradition alive and well, since mom already told me she's not buying me any more. and we even started our own tradition of spending Christmas Eve snuggled up in a blanket on the couch, sipping some hot chocolate in front of the fire.

on Christmas morning we woke up cuz "you gotta get up, You Gotta Get Up, YOU GOTTA GET UP!!! ITS CHRISTMAS MOOOORRRNING!!!" of course. Santa was apparently not very hungry by the time he got to our house, but we left him cookies on our kick-butt Santa tray anyway.

we opened our stockings first, and by then breakfast was ready: Cinnamon rolls for me, and eggs and cereal for the husband.

and that is where my documentation stops. for serious. you will note a severe lack of photos of presents and people, not that there werent any, (there were actually a lot) but just for the fact that i did not take my camera out of my purse for the rest of the day. oops. but Christmas isnt really over yet - maybe i'll make up for it tonight and snap a few pics when we go for make-up Christmas with Mark's dad's family, (because we missed the real one for the Lane family Christmas) and i'll try and remember to take pics when the sisters come this weekend for Christmas/New Years, or maybe i'll just keep the streak alive and just put my camera back into my purse and forget that its there until next year.