Happy New Year!!!!!!!!

{living}&{doing}

Wow, so.....  I'm not the only person that Christmas seriously crept up on and then whizzed past this year right?! In fact, more to that point, I still have Christmas presents for a couple people to finish up making and Christmas cards to send out..... yep I got that far behind schedule this year...... I also had planned some fun posts for the blog here for Christmas related stuff, but, yeah...... clearly that didn't happen. (Although, I may still do my post on handmade ornaments, as I'm un-decorating, since after Christmas seems to be when I typically get the most ornaments made haha) For that matter I didn't even ever manage to get ALL my decorations up this year (granted I do a LOT of decorating for Christmas so even without getting it all up/done we still had plenty up.)  For me, if i don't get things finished by at least a couple days before Christmas the chances of them getting done before early January are pretty slim, Christmas Eve we have church and then dinner at our house with my family, then of course Christmas day, then the 27th is my sister's birthday, then this year we had an ugly sweater party on the 28th, then the 29th is my mom's birthday, then of course we come up on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day, then yesterday we took my sister to the airport so she could head back home, and we have a wedding to go to tomorrow, so it has been a full, but great couple weeks.  But you see why stuff definitely has to get done ahead of time or not at all......

Even though I didn't get a chance to post all of the posts I had been hoping to I still want to share some pictures from some of our Christmas traditions and events before I dive headlong into what's going to be going on in the new year.

Cutting our own Tree.....

posing in the patch before finding a tree

Searching for just the right one (we were only looking for a little one for the front porch)

aaaaaaaaaaaa..... the ONE

My hubbster cutting our little tree

This was everyone's favorite photo, lol, us with our "quarry"

our little tree in place by our front door

and decorated. I really wasn't sure at first what I wanted to do with this tree decoration wise, but I decided to go simple and I think that looked best.

This was a new tradition for us this year.  I had always wanted to go cut my own Christmas tree and last year I found out that the farm that we go to for berry picking, and pumpkins, and to shop in their market has a cut your own patch.  We didn't end up making it out there last year to get one, but I made sure that we did this year, and we plan on keeping this tradition going year after year.

Christmas Traditions

tacky Christmas lights "festival" at a local bluegrass park/camp

driving through the light festival

driving through the light festival

driving through the light festival

driving through the light festival

driving through the light festival

My husband and I at a slightly more high tech light festival..... our local mall does a holiday light show in the middle of the outdoor section of the mall

nursery rhymes window display at one of our local stores in downtown.

the store's other window

and we of course have to have our pictures taken with the Mater and Guido that are outside of one of our local mechanics shop (and not just for Christmas, we've gotten Easter pictures, Halloween pictures, 4th of July pictures, etc.......)

one of our favorite traditions is Christmas lights. We've always driven around finding houses and neighboorhoods with lots of lights, but last year we also found out about a drive through "festival of lights" at a nearby bluegrass park/camp.  We went last year, and as you may have guessed from the pictures (that's only a small sampling of pictures from it) it is FABULOUSLY redneck and SO much fun! It is now a must go for us each year.  We also like to go see the light show our local mall does in the center of it's outdoor area.  They have the lights programmed to "dance" to Christmas music (although I have to say this year we were really disappointed, it was only maybe a third of the length it normally is and they really didn't do as much and the lights weren't really that well synced to the music......).  Another thing that I wait for all year is the window displays of one of our local shops in downtown Fredericksburg..... they always do something really neat, this year it was nursery rhymes.

Christmas Eve Dinner

this year dinner was served in our breakfast nook on my new table

the tablescape for Christmas Eve Dinner

close up of one placesetting

closeup of one placesetting

and with the bowl removed so that you can see my new Christmas plates

close up of the centerpiece.... I actually threw this one together at the last minute because I didn't get the one I had planned done.  I ended up really liking this one though

Christmas Eve Dinner is always at our house after church on Christmas Eve. We always have fish soup/stew, and then each year I make a different side to go with it and dessert.  This year it was a goat cheese and proscuitto with Italian herbs quiche, and a lemon cream cheese pie for dessert. {P.S. here's a link to the recipe I use for the fish soup.... it is sooo good!}

Ugly Christmas Sweater Party

decorate your own sweater ornament activity table

sign for decorate your own ugly sweater ornament

decorate your own ugly sweater cookie station

snacks (including ugly sweat min pizzas)

a few sweets

Hubster decorating his cookie

my mom making sweater ornaments

 I didn't take a whole lot of pictures of this party, and really didn't do a whole lot of decorating specifically for it, since the house is already decorated for Christmas, I also don't have pictures of my husband and I in our ugly sweaters, we did take them, but they are on my mom's phone and I haven't gotten them from her yet, but you can see a little bit of his in the picture or him making his cookie.... it was definitely tacky!

There was of course a bunch of other stuff from the past few weeks, but the idea here is just to give you a few of the highlights, and activities...
{We did of course have a Theme Food Week for December the week before Christmas that I haven't gotten posted yet, but I think it deserves it's own post so I'll try to get that up this weekend too}

~

And so now, as I sit here on this dreary/rainy first Saturday of the new year, it's time to start planning for 2015.  We have a few trips that we are hoping to be able to go on this year, as well as our typical little day trips and activities.  For the blog I'm hoping not only to chronicle not only that stuff, but I'll be continuing on with Theme Food Week, and I'm planning on testing out some more Homemade Homemaking projects this winter.  And of course more crafts and collecting and decorating (I still have several re-decorating/remodeling projects I'm hoping to get done around the house this winter/spring), parties, and fun stuff.

And so I bid farewell to 2014.  In some ways it was a not so great year, but it also brought some amazing times and experiences for us, and good or bad I truly believe that all things in life are vital to making us a better us, and I refuse to be anything but thankful for the experiences, no mater how much they may hurt, or how difficult they may seem to deal with/get through.

And a welcome 2015 with excitement and hope. (and perhaps a slight amazement that it can really be 2015 already..... I remember as a kid figuring out how old I would be when the year 2000 came and it seemed so old and so far away, and now that I'm about to turn 30 this year, I look back at those 14 years olds and they seem SO young and 14 years old and the turn of the century seems so long ago, even while it sometimes feels like that was just yesterday)

Praying for blessings and cheer, and strength for you and yours in the new year!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!