christmas 2010

i don't even know where to begin...i love christmas!!!! and this year was better than ever :)
it was so so so so good to be home w/ family. dave and i left around noon the wednesday before christmas and got to his parents' home 3:00 am friday "morning." i got to spend 9 wonderful days w/ my family before the dreadfully long trip back up to canada.

a picture i snapped out the window of our lil' tacoma on the way down to va. the drive was beautiful. the snow never ended.

we even drug our lovely lil' christmas tree all the way down to va :) let's just say it was def. worse for the wear by the time we arrived, but we had a christmas tree!!!!

it all started christmas eve up at grandaddy and grammy's house. there are 12 +1 of us grandkids and grammy always does her best to spoil us rotten :)
i always know beyond a shadow of a doubt that i will have the best meal of the year at her house on christmas eve...this year was no exception!!!
my favorite is the dressing and the pickles :) mmmmmmmmmmm!!!!! grammy even made me my own jar of pickles to bring back up to canada w/ me...not going to lie, they're already almost gone.
after our amazing meal, we all sit down out in the living room, sing some christmas songs, and then do our gift exchanges and open gifts. it's a wonderful time!


we also use this time to snap all kinds of interesting pics :)

christmas day was spent w/ dave's immediate family. they have a tradition of going up to the cabin on christmas eve and spending the night there. his dad makes breakfast for everyone the next morning and then gifts are opened :) yay!!! more stuff :)

this is a picture of the road going up to the cabin.

the cabin :)

christmas w/ my immediate family took place on sunday. we went to church in the morning. had an amazing shrimp lunch made by my mummsy dear and then we opened presents :) yay!!! more stuff!!!
mom is so good at coming up w/ fun stuff for us to do to make christmas absolutely amazing :)
she had 2 fun gift games for us this year. for the first one she bought 9 different books from the christian book store. we had quite a time picking them and stealing them and conniving w/ each other so that we would end up w/ the book that we wanted :)
the second round had various $20 gifts. i ended up w/ a lovely bamboo plate/platter. it's so fun getting new things to add to our lil' home here in red lake!
mom also fills up a stocking for each of us kids :)
after all the gifts were opened, we finished out the day w/games...

dave and i brought home a game that we bought in winnipeg called "ticket to ride." it was quite a hit and got played quite a few times throughout the week.
also, in this pic you can see the hats that i made for melissa and rebecca for christmas :)

and here is autumn modeling hers :)

the final game of the day was progressive rook :) it was so much fun...even though i lost :(

after all the christmas festivities were over, dave and i spent the rest of the week doing different things w/ our families.
mom said that when i was down that she wanted me to dip some chocolates for her.

i dipped some pretzels and ritz bits

and made buckeyes!!!! :)

bec made some amazing white chocolate red velvet truffles...i'm super excited to try them out sometime in the near future :)

another fun lil' activity that i did was to paint a crosscut saw w/ my mummsy :)

friends in canada gave us the saw. we hauled it down to va, got it sandblasted, painted it w/ black rustoleum, and then mom and i set to work

the finished product :)
it's a treasure to say the least!!!!

you can see mom's signature on the top pic, and mine on the bottom

another christmas tradition that our family has is to have a fondue supper around christmas

this year we had granddaddy and grammy and uncle joe and aunt ruthy down for the occasion.

everyone getting into the game "ticket to ride" after the meal was over.

another fun thing that i got to do while i was in va was to take some pics of benjamin and his girlfriend melissa.

love them :)

unfortunately i didn't get pics of everything that i got into over the past 2 weeks...but this should at least give you a small glimpse into my amazing christmas :) so much fun!!!! so many blessings, so much joy, love, hope, and peace :)

ps. one thing i did forget to do was to bring my thank you cards from our wedding home w/ me to mail...sooooooo, if you get a thank you card at it says merry christmas on it, i apologize ;)