Philly

An old tradition of ours is to take the train into Philly around Christmastime to see the Lord and Taylors light show and the Strawbridges Christmas Village. Since Lord and Taylors was bought by Macy's and Strawbridges went out of business we had since lost that tradition. One day my mom saw an ad for the village and light show put together in Macy's so we were very happy to start up our tradition again.

Waiting for the train and freezing. We were so happy to find that the new station waiting area has heat warmers.

The Christmas Village is a self guided exhibit of "A Christmas Carol".

Tiny Tim (or Tiny Tina as my sisters like to call him).

After the shows we headed over to Reading Terminal Market to look around.

For lunch we went to Maggianos which was really really good.

and you can see I gained about 5 lbs on this trip and am in dire need of The biggest loser!

Christmas Day

Thankfully my sisters didn't make us wake up until 8am so I wasn't to cranky. Here is Matt showing off his Santa gifts. Socks, Seasons 1&2 of 30 Rock and of course a flash light.

Can we just say precious? Garfield is a very interesting cat. He always had to be wherever we were and he loves boxes!

Here is the before picture for the Christmas Breakfast.

Matt once again in charge of pancakes. This year we were down two people as Crystal and Lauren were both in Utah. It was basically just me, Matt, mom and dad since the other girls disappeared 30 minutes into the breakfast.

Craziness ensued this year as you can see. After 12 years of doing this we had the largest turnout ever. 107 people came! We ran out of food and had to get creative.

After everyone left around 3:30pm we finally were able to open our gifts. Yes people I received a leopard print snuggie and I love it! I also got two kitty collars and a scratch pad which in essence means I am getting two cats. yay :)

The night ended with a turkey dinner and a call from Lauren. Lauren is serving in the SLC South Mission and is able to call home on Christmas Day and Mothers Day. We talked for about an hour and she sounded really good. The SLC mission sounds like a party! But she is working hard and loves her mission.

Christmas Eve

We had our traditional Christmas Eve dinner comprising of eggrolls, shrimp cocktail, fresh salsa, taquitos and sushi. Matt learned to make the sushi this year which will come in handy! After dinner Matt read "Silent Night, Holy Night" (which by the way is worth like $60 since Walter Cronkite passed away). Then we each opened a present and settled in to watch "Scrooge". That movie really never gets old. I love traditions and especially Christmas Eve.

Banshee

This is for Uncle Whitney.

Christmas Eve 2009

*This is from a post I blogged two years ago and might give anyone who watches this a better idea as to why we scream!

"We all settled in to watch "Scrooge". This year was especially special to us because there is a scene in the movie where a hideous looking child sings about Scrooge saying, "He's a Banshee". Well not so....Uncle Whitney ruined our fun by telling us that the kid really says, 'he's a bandit' and told us our dad had been lying to us all these years. We put the closed captions on during the song and all cried when we read the sad truth. We still screamed out that he was a banshee and will continue to do so....so there."

SNOW

I knew it would have to snow sometime during my trip but what I didn't know was that it was going to be the biggest storm of 2009!
Jenna, Hailey and I had big plans for Saturday so we braved the storm and went shopping.
We saw Santa on our way.....he brings candy canes to all of the children in the township one day a year and it happened to be this snowy day.

Concerts

In the past when I would come home from college I was always able to see my sisters perform in their winter concerts. This year I had the same opportunity and I loved it!

Here is Hailey's performance. She plays the trumpet.

Here is Kyra's high school performance.

Every year the Choir sings "Hallelujah Chorus" and they invite the Alumni to come sing with them. I got the courage and went up!!

Here is a video of Hailey's performance. The song is titled, "African Noel". Now keep in Mind this is an elementary school band! They are hot diggity good.

Cookie Exchange

My mom had her annual cookie exchange and I was finally home when it took place!

Me with Dana's precious little baby Finn. I got permission to put this up....right Dana?!

I was in charge of the hot chocolate station......only two people drank it :( But I think it looks Scrumtrulescent.