After opening presents and having our annual family breakfast at Memom & Rannan's, we hit the road to Helena around noon. We already had the car packed... all we had to do was stop by the house and pick up Reggie. We didn't sleep to great on Christmas Eve, so I napped about 1/2 of the way there and my superstar hubby drove us there.
We arrived in Helena and quickly got ready for Christmas dinner! All of Tripp's family was there and we had a beautiful dinner. They always bring out the fine china and Mary Ann (Tripp's mom, aka "Marnee") has the house fully decked in Christmas decor. It is amazing. We drank some Egg Nog and opened some presents with those that we wouldn't see again.
We slept in the next morning and opened presents with the smaller group - the Bettis', Tripp's parents and us. Grayson helped us all open the presents.
We were pretty lazy the rest of the time... eating and napping. I snapped some pics of Grayson playing with Marnee's nativity set. Such a cutie.
We woke up on Tuesday, Tripp's Dad's B-day, and were all feeling a bit off. I felt pretty nauseous that morning and then Tripp & his mom started getting sick... with the stomach bug. I ended up missing it somehow... a miracle, thank you Jesus! I felt SO bad for them. Tripp rarely gets sick and it was not easy watching him feel so bad. We layed in bed until around 1pm and we decided we would drive home to NWA since he had to work the next day. Tripp felt pretty miserable for the first 1/2 of the car ride, threw up once... but then felt much better.
He went to work the next day and I basically took it easy the rest of the week. My office closes the week after Christmas, so I had a total of 7 days off! It was AMAZING. So lucky to work there.
That was basically Christmas 2011! It was a whirl-wind, but loved being with family. Since I've been a little excited about decorating for Christmas this year, I got some great deals on some more decor for next year! :)
To kick off Christmas with my family this year, we decided we wanted to have an all-day progressive party on Friday. This would allow us to see everyone's Christmas trees and eat, drink and be merry at the same time! It was a blast and we all agreed it was a new Christmas tradition. We started at Aunt KK & Uncle Scott's for breakfast at 10am, headed to my parents house in Rogers for lunch at 1pm, back to Fayetteville for dinner and drinks at 5pm and lastly... at Tripp and I's for dessert!
Here are some pictures from the day... all of the food and drinks were so yummy. This was the first time we had really had a "party/get-together" at the house, and I loved prepping for it!
My parents' house:
Our house - I served Amaretto Freezes, petit fours and cookies from Rick's. We all crammed in the living room (people were on the stairs) for some good laughs and SUPER full bellies after a day of non-stop drinking and eating!
I convinced Tripp that we needed a real tree for Christmas this year... since we went with a fake one last year right after the wedding. The house we live in right now doesn't have a lot of free space, but we made it work!
I apparently did not participate in setting up and decorating our real trees growing up (sorry mom & dad!) because I had NO idea what to do once we bought the tree. I had to YouTube how to put lights on the tree, I didn't realize how much water it needed... it was a learning experience, but I LOVE having our real tree this year! ;)
Tripp and I watched the Adjustment Bureau and decorated the tree. After our wedding in October, some women from Helena hosted an Ornament party for me. It was SO fun to have a party after the wedding and we received some amazing ornaments! Everyone was so generous. Since we didn't use them last year, it was like Christmas morning as I opened all of the ornaments! There was only one casualty... which Tripp was initially betting there would be many more.
Here are some pics of the tree(s) in our house this Christmas :)
Let's start with the real tree. Lots of pics and most are bad because I took them with my iPhone.
This is the fake tree we put up last Christmas... It was still fully decorated from last year, so we decided it needed to come out of the closet too! It matches the colors in the house perfectly and its woodsy-lookin' which I love.
This might by my favorite tree in the house... I started collecting the Patience Brewster 12 Days of Christmas ornaments after the Ornament party. I have about 5 now and they are beautiful ornaments! I decided they should have their own tree and here it is! Hopefully we will just keep adding to this tree until we have the entire collection. Love it and the colors match the bathroom pretty well too!
I go to Market with Marnee (Tripp's Mom) and Kristin (Tripp's Sister) in a couple of weeks and have some Christmas items to add to my decor for next year.
I joined SSX a little over 4 months ago and I am blown away by how much FUN these people have at work.... and we work hard, but everyone has a pretty darn good time doing it. I'm so thankful I was given the opportunity to work for an amazing agency with great people.
We recently had our agency Christmas party and it was awesome. It was decorated to a tee and they had a full band for entertainment. Here are some pics from the photobooth they had there... yes, my mom and dad are also in attendance as my dad works at SSX too!
I thought these were soooo funny!
There was another SSX Christmas party... called the "Royal Holiday Gala." It was thrown by our Group Creative Director and the party was at her house. Once you RSVPd to the party, you were given a formal invitation that informed you to either dress naughty or nice. Tripp put his Christmas gift from Memom & Rannan to good use and it was hilarious. I was a proud wife.
Every guest had to sit in the royal throne and get their photo taken before entering the party. Take a look at thisss hotness!
My parents also went to this, so I had to share this pic. My dad and Scott were priests (my dad was sportin' this awful gelled mohawk)... my mom's face is PRICELESS. She's the best!
