The Festivities

fes·tiv·i·ty
n. pl. fes·tiv·i·ties
1. A joyous feast, holiday, or celebration; a festival.
2. The pleasure, joy, and gaiety of a festival or celebration.
3. festivities The proceedings or events of a festival.
Noun
1. happy celebration: a spirit of joy and festivity

That pretty much sums up our holidays perfectly!

It all started with an all day Christmas Eve cheesy Lifetime movie marathon (for me); then once the girls were in bed for the night, I changed into my warm 'star' fleece pj's, curled up with a blanket and enjoyed a glass of (milk-diluted) eggnog complete with whipped cream and nutmeg sprinkled on top. Tony and I watched a couple more Christmas movies together and I just looked at him and said "This is the perfect Christmas Eve." I was so content and happy. And it was so good to feel that way. We didn't have to GO anywhere and we didn't have to DO anything. Sometimes, especially around the 'Holidays', we get overwhelmed with what we feel we have to do and forget to just enjoy the Season altogether.

I truly believe that the reason for my content-ed-ness this year was because I simplified everything. Nat reminded me of a saying I learned a long time ago: K.I.S.S. "Keep It Simple Stupid". That's exactly what I did! I put up minimal Christmas decorations, which is way different for me---my most favorite thing is to decorate for Christmas--my house is quite bare otherwise. We don't have room for a tree and even if we did, it would have been knocked down in 3 minutes flat and the decorations that I would have spent countless OCD hours hanging would be misplaced or worse--broken forever. We didn't put up any lights outside and we didn't do many gifts. I didn't really do neighbor gifts either. I appreciate so many people and there is just no way I can do something for everyone. I was stressing all month about it and just decided that the extra stress was not necessary. I did make a wreath for the front door and I put the three crucial parts of my Nativity up next to a mosaic mirror table top tree and that was it. Truly nothing else was needed.

Here are my sad, yet perfectly adequate, decorations:

Christmas day was spent at Tony's parents house. The girls really enjoyed opening presents this year. They even assisted others in the opening.....

So Helpful.....

Serious Concentration....

No one went overboard and we even got them some extremely practical gifts, as evidenced in these pictures:

My Future "Merry Maids" The Haul:
The Aftermath:

Just as we were recovering from this fun day, we had another fun day of celebration----The Girl's Second Birthday on the 27th!!!!

We went over to Tony's parents house again and played all day then opened presents and had cake. Here are the pictures from their special day:

I decided to do cupcakes this year and put them on a platter in the shape of a '2'. They were strawberry flavored white cupcakes with strawberry frosting and some were topped with a strawberry flavored meringue cookie in the shape of flowers or butterflies.

They tasted absolutely divine.

They actually ate their cupcakes this year!

In order of Birth:

Ashleigh

Jordyn

(Miss Priss asking for a towel because she got frosting on her finger)

Avery

(removing all of her frosting)
Nana and Papa got the girls hats and gloves....
Ashleigh decided that the hat must go on her toes........and they will probably be able to wear these until college!
Strike a pose.

They wore them for the rest of the night!

Then Grandma and Grandpa sent some presents and the girls had a ball opening them and playing in the one-foot-deep pile of wrapping!

What a fantastic and lovely Holiday we had. Thank you everyone!!

I am so grateful for everyone who thinks of us, helps us out, supports us and is just there for us in case we need them. It's been such an awesome year full of growth, challenges and accomplishments. I can't wait for this next year--- 2009 is going to be an interesting and exciting year for us!

Stay tuned!