Oh what a day! I could not sleep a wink past 6:30 and after unsuccessfully attempting to fall back to sleep, I decided that Conor and I should just get up because I knew he wasn’t quite sleeping either. So at 7 am we arose and made a beeline for our stockings. We must have been good this year, because Santa was quite good to us! To be honest, we had quite a leisurely morning opening up gifts. We did our stockings and then worked our way around to the gifts we gave each other. I was so impressed that Conor didn’t guess what I was giving him especially since I pretty much told him. And he could not guess the Dominoes for the life of him. Oh, I gave him some Bose headphones. I’m not sure they are the best thing to give from my side because they block all sound, but Conor is enjoying them… Conor gave me some great gifts this year, including an incredible stocking! He also gave me 8 bowls, all different colours from Anthro. We have some dishes we’d like to start phasing out. And Conor gave me a great coat that I really wanted but never talked about. How did he know?? Plus, I had already said to myself that I don’t need another wool coat, I already have one. But I do need this coat and am so glad I have it! I have to exchange it for one size smaller, but that’s no big deal. And we did end up exchanging Christmas Eve gifts, which were slippers!!

We ate a hearty breakfast of waffles, cool whip and strawberries with yummy OJ. Christmas is no time for a grocery budget in my opinion. We opened up gifts from Conor’s parents, using ichat as a Christmas portal. Get this, one of the gifts addressed to Conor was actually for me! Conor opened it up only to discover another box wrapped and addressed to me! Very tricky! Conor really took it like a man and I took it like a giddy little girl because hey, who doesn’t like one more surprise gift? Score! Within were pasta-making attachments for my kitchenaid mixer! So excited. And it truly is a gift for Conor too. We had quite the morning!

In the afternoon, we went over to the Jensen’s and enjoyed a low-key, quiet Christmas. Conor enjoyed being a little boy again with Owen and I especially enjoyed cooking with Lisa. We love the Jensens and are so grateful to have them as our home away from home!

We had such a wonderful Christmas and feel so blessed with abundance! I have to admit that I’m already thinking of things for next Christmas; gifts, traditions and what fun it’s going to be!

Oh, we ichatted with the Muirheads and Cora says to us, “When are you coming for dinner, how ‘bout 5?” So cute! We had to explain to Freyja and Cora that we won’t be there for Christmas, but that we’ll be there next year and gave then a timeline as to when we’d see them next. We’ll be there next Christmas. I promise!

My new bowls. There is also a darker blue one and a red one!

We had a great Christmas! We received a surprise package on Christmas Eve day and even though I arrived at the post office 10 minutes past close, I was still able to pick it up! It was from my parents and I knew it contained cookies and “a few other little things,” but there weren’t little things in there! It was a fabulous Christmas surprise!

We did stay here in Denver, although we seriously considered flying home on Christmas Day (after we had opened our gifts) to surprise everyone. It’s not as delicious of a surprise when I’m writing about it and it didn’t happen, but it sure would’ve been sweet. We will be home for Christmas next year! Conor and I have gotten good at Christmases on our own. We thoroughly enjoyed our Christmas Eve together, cutting gingerbread men, playing cards, well, Conor did declare that he’s never playing Uno again and was choked he didn’t beat me by more when we played a game of Crib. We topped our evening off with the movie, Elf and did our best to fall into dreams of sugar plums only to discover that we get too razzed up at Christmastime to sleep! Myself included, shocking!

Conor had a mullet. The proof is on our tree!

Conor’s “creatively” run-over and twisted gingerbread men.

I demanded that we get a tree this year and so we did, quite late into Christmas too! It’s just a little one, no taller than I am and the poor guy’s a little bit flimsy and can’t hold up heavy ornaments, which means neither of us were able to hang all of our ornaments, but I’m not complaining! It was a dream come true really. All of the presents are neatly arranged under our Charlie Brown tree and Conor is persistent in his begging to open up “one” Christmas present. I always say no although sometimes I’ll toy with him first. Conor is the worst at waiting for his birthday or Christmas to come before he opens gifts. And it doesn’t help that our neighbors are opening one gift a day leading up to Christmas because they can’t fit all their gifts in their luggage (thanks a lot Mel and Ryan!). And so as grinch-like as this sounds, I will be grateful for Christmas Day because then the nagging will cease!! You know what I really dislike about Conor’s inability to just hang in there? I’m the one that got named the “peeker” in his family and FYI, I’ve never peeked. Not even once!

Here are a couple shots of our lowly Christmas tree and gifts. No ornaments in these ones!

Yesterday afternoon, Melanie and I made Christmas treats to last a lifetime! We made 2 types of bark, fudge, caramels, and dipped pretzels and melted rolos on pretzels. The first batch of caramels was a disaster. The bottom burned and the butter separated. Somehow the guys managed to salvage the pot (phew!). Our only casualty was my favourite 9×13 pan. Melanie surprised us all with her Kelly Ripa strength and got all of the caramel out of the pan. There was still a bit left on the bottom that I thought I would try my hand at removing and with my first try I shattered one of the corners of my pan. Arg! Will I ever be able to replace it? Anyways, everything turned out absolutely delicious and perfect and so Christmasy! We packaged it all into white blouse boxes with red cellophane and will be making deliveries this afternoon. Next Christmas, we’ll be old pros.

Busy Kitchen:

Failed caramels. It looks like there’s pepper sprinkled in it, but really that’s just the burned sugar. Mmmm!

Beautiful boxes:

My new best friend, Melanie, did a campaign for beauty on her blog, you are my fave. I finally participated and was featured today! Head on over to find out what I love about me.

As a side note (and this is not revealing all), Conor says it’s funny that I said I love my boyish figure because, “when did you ever have a boyish figure?” Thanks Conor, for finding my figure beautiful in every womanly way. Aren’t I good at putting words into his mouth?

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