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| Last year's tree... it was really pretty! |
This year we weren't quite as excited. I'm not sure if it was the new kitty and all the horror stories I had heard about kittens and Christmas trees, how busy we were with school and work, a tighter budget this year, or our townhouse just not quite feeling like home yet, but neither of us was very gung-ho about decorating for Christmas. But, after an extra week without decorations, we were finally feeling a little more Christmas spirit and decided it was time to get moving on our tree shopping!
After church that Sunday, we headed over to a massive tree lot behind the Overton's store. They seriously must have had 400 trees! Maybe they planned for all of Eastern NC to shop at that stand because it was a serious operation. I'm already indecisive when it comes to trees (they just look so different outside, so it's hard to envision them in our home), so this vast forest was a bit overwhelming. But, we finally found a great little tree within our budget and had them trim it up and tie it to the car and off we went to decorate it!
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| Usually we take the truck to buy our tree... this year was a hipster Christmas! |
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| I like to call this one "Redneck Rambo cuts the extra off the top of the tree" |
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| So cozy! The only problem with a smaller tree is there's not enough room for all of our ornaments! |
This serenity lasted for about 3.5 seconds until the kitten decided that was boring and he wanted to bite the limbs, and drink from the base, and play with the ornaments, and jump in this massive bushy thing. This explains why he spent much of the month of December upstairs. He seriously became a little devil cat, with energy like we had never seen. It must have been the sap in the water because we couldn't keep him out of that tree! I read that you should put a couple balloons in the tree and once the kitten pops one he won't mess with it any more. On our way home with the tree next year, we will also pick up balloons.
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| *No humans were harmed in the taking of this photograph. |
We made it through to Christmas week and Stephen was finally out of school and able to relax some! Although he didn't relax much because he took over the grocery shopping, cooking, cleaning, and kitty duty since I had was still working. He was so sweet to handle all of that, and we had evenings all to ourselves! No studying and no chores... it was glorious.
Since we were heading out of town Wednesday, we celebrated Christmas just the three of us Tuesday night. It was a very cozy evening and, as always, fun to finally figure out what Stephen had been planning for me and let him open his presents too! Flint got some new treats which he is CRAZY about! He has dragged them out of the pantry multiple times and now they are out of his reach.
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| Me and my Christmas kitty! |
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| Our 3rd married Christmas :) |
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| Well, we tried. |
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| Stephen set me up with a new stereo system for my car and purple iPad case and I gave him some new shoes, cologne and fancy stylus for his iPad! |
On Christmas Eve morning, we packed up half the house, all of the presents under our tree, and the kitty with his belongings. As soon as Stephen stepped outside to load the car it started pouring. But we made it to Apex safe and sound, although it was a tedious drive with standing water on the highway.
Thus began our whirlwind week celebrating with family and friends!! Since the year we got engaged, we have tried to plan and work things out so that we can be at every gathering that we always did before we met one another. It's pretty exhausting, but so worth it. We know that one day when we have kids we will start our own traditions and won't be able to haul kids back and forth across town for four days straight so we are enjoying it while we can! Our schedule usually looks like this:
~ Christmas Eve brunch at my Mema & Grandaddy's house with all the Pierce aunts, uncles and cousins: we all open stockings overflowing with all sorts of goodies and presents from our grandparents. Then, all the cousins have a homemade gift exchange! That's one of my favorite exchanges--we all choose a project that is under $10 and draw names for our gifts. It's so fun to see everyone's creativity!
~ Christmas Eve dinner with Stephen's dad's side of the family at his cousin Kerri's house along with Kerri's in-laws: we have a huge lasagna dinner and admire Kerri and Casey's 15 foot tall tree! This year we started a white elephant exchange and plan to continue that as well! They always have other fun games to play too.
~ Christmas morning: This year we stayed with my parents for most of the trip and Hilary and Colin stayed as well. We slept in several hours later than when we were growing up (I could never sleep and would wake Hilary up right at 5am when my parents had told me was the earliest we could go downstairs); then my dad made us breakfast and we opened one big sack with presents per couple. It was fun to see what all was in the bag!
~ Christmas lunch is at my Papa and Nita's house with my great grandma, great great aunt, and Nita's daughters' families. Nita always cooks a huge spread of delicious food and then we read a devotional. Throughout the year each person finds a unique, gender-neutral gift and we do a white elephant exchange. It usually gets pretty heated as the young ones steal from the older ones and vice versa!
~ Christmas dinner: This year we headed to Stephen's parents after lunch and met up with his family for another celebration. We had yet another delicious meal his mom had spent the day cooking, and then we opened up presents in rounds: each person gets one gift and we all open those and admire them, then move on to the next round. I couldn't believe how many gifts there were under that tree! We played with our gifts for a while and then we crashed.
~ The 26th: The Wild West gang always meets for bowling the morning after Christmas. The highest scorer gets to keep the reindeer antlers until the next year and it gets pretty competitive!
~ Lunch on the 26th: This year we had the privilege of joining some of Stephen's long-time family friends for lunch. Part of their family are missionaries in Africa, a couple are med students up north, and very few live in NC, but all were together this year and we were able to spend the afternoon with them. It was very fun to catch up!
~ Dinner on the 26th: It was back to my parents' for dinner... Hilary had been craving mashed potatoes (perhaps due in part to the little one in her belly) so my parents made their first batch of mashed potatoes and they were DELICIOUS! The rest of the meal was great too, but these potatoes were perfection.
~ The 27th: Finally back in Apex and available on a Saturday morning, I met my BFF Brittany for our usual Jazzercise and breakfast at Brueggers. As always, it wasn't long enough to spend with her but absence makes the heart grow fonder ;)
~ Lunch on the 27th: This was Stephen's sister Abigail's 23rd birthday so we met his family for lunch at Sitti in Raleigh to celebrate, in hopes of having a little lighter meal after days of gorging ourselves! Then we headed over to NCSU and enjoyed her chocolate raspberry birthday cake out in the sunshine!
~ Dinner on the 27th: This was also my friend Alana's 18th birthday so we met up with her and a bunch of others at Red Robin in North Raleigh to celebrate with her. She has been through a ton this year and I am hopeful that the next year will be a little less chaotic for her and her little girl.
And then it was time to drive back home. We had the car all packed so we loaded up the kitty and headed east, talking the whole way about our fun Christmas adventure and how wonderful our families are. We are so very blessed and thankful!
We were exhausted once we got home; I think I could've slept for days! Usually Flint would have been too, but that Christmas tree is just so energizing he couldn't slow down! Stephen enjoyed his second week on break, and I had New Year's Day off, and took the 2nd off as well so we had a nice long weekend together. We took all of the decorations down, and suddenly the Cap'n was all tuckered out. He finally gave up and slept, and slept, and slept some more. He has been extra snuggly and more of a "cat" than a kitten ever since--I think it was his New Year's resolution to be more snuggly for his mommy (but he was also definitely depressed after his best friend the tree left us).
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| Sooooo sleepy |
Saturday we headed back to Raleigh to celebrate Hilary's birthday at the NCSU basketball game (where Stephen and I met almost 4 years ago!) and we were also able to watch the ultrasound video of the little baby dancing around in her belly. It was so cool!!! Pretty sure this one is going to be a thumb-sucker like me so we are already bonded by that!
After this last celebration and two weeks of fun, it was time to get back into our normal routine. We realized that Christmas break will be Stephen's longest breaks of each school year, so although it's a bummer that this one is past, it was good to get back into a routine. He kicked off 2015 with a great week at school and I had a really good week at work. The last bit of 2014 had really been a struggle for me so I am thankful for the shift and hopeful that I'm on a better path now in this position.
2014 was a year of excitement and big changes for us. We are looking forward to 2015 and all that it holds, trusting that God has the perfect plans in mind for us!
~Buckwheat
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