The BIG post of Christmas... I think that's a pretty fitting name

Wowee! We had one great Christmas this year! This post will pretty much cover the whole Christmas season, and only a month late! Pretty impressive I'd say. So lets start from the beginning:

The Tree:
Brig decided again this year that he wanted to cut down his own Christmas tree! Once again, I wasn't able to go, but since this is apparently going to be a tradition in our family, I'm sure I'll get my chance sooner or later. Brig and Becki brought home two awesome trees! We were so excited to get ours into our new house!

So here we are! Setting up our first Christmas tree! This is one of my favorite parts of Christmas. My family has always had a real tree and my mom decorates it so beautifully (just like everything else!) I always love sitting down by the tree late at night with just the Christmas lights on. It's fun to be able to do this in my own home.

We did argue a little bit about putting the lights on. I was trying to be way too picky. I have a lot to live up to! Thanks a lot mom!

For awhile we only had lights, and it ended up that we only had lights and a few ornaments through the whole season! There were just too many other things to buy since we'd just moved in! Snoop liked it though, so that's all that matters ;) Can't you tell how thrilled he was?!

Lunch with my Girls:
Out of the 6 of us girls, two live away from Logan! We don't get to see each other very often anymore, but when we do, you can guarantee that it is going to be a good time! Becca flew in for Christmas from D.C. and Allison came down for the weekend, so we decided a lunch date was definitely in order. Poor Emily had to work, but the good news is, that we were able to take the party to her! We ate at Olive Garden, which is where she works, and it was fun to all be together. And we're laughing:

Love you girls!


Ashcroft family Christmas "Eve":
This year was my family's "off" year, so whenever that happens, we choose a different day to get together and celebrate Christmas Eve (which is the big event in our family). This year we got to go down to Nicole's and as always, it was a blast :) We were really sad not to have Candice and her family there, as they're still in Germany, but we are always thinking of them! Hopefully it wont be too much longer before they can come home!
I am not going to lie that I was a little bit disappointed that we didn't do the traditional Christmas Eve dinner, but what we had was certainly tasty, and my mom agreed that on the actual day she was going to make the same amount of food as she usually does, so that we could have left overs :)

I thought that maybe just for memories sake, I would jot down a few things that we do on Christmas Eve. Generally it starts out with my favorite dinner of the year, which consists of a lot of fattening breads, ham or turkey, mexican and crab dips, chocolates, mince pies, a yummy salad and augratin potatoes. Aside from the tree, my other VERY FAVORITE part of Christmas is the Zopfa. Oh. My. Heck. It is the most delicious bread you'll ever taste. I crave it all year!
After dinner comes sitting down in the living room and listening to a billion year old tape that tells the Christmas Story, narrated by Burl Ives. I HAVE GOT to get a copy of it somewhere! After Burl, we sing Christmas songs. While in most homes this is probably something to be taken seriously, at our house it is probably the most comical thing that goes on all year. My dad breaks out his guitar, that he will never get out again until next year, and we proceed to sing, shattering mirrors, and laughing so hard our faces turn red!
Next we open presents from our person. And after that we always take a picture with our stocking in the place that we'll be sitting the next morning. Then we all go downstairs and make our beds, watch a movie, and try to sleep. Obviously, that didn't happen this year, because we were at the Cranes, but yeah.

What a lively bunch, eh?

This year we decided to draw families, so that everyone would be able to spend the same amount of money. Brig and I got Christian and Bretton (who count as a family since neither of them are married) and we got them a PS3 game (Assassin's Creed)

Me and two of my best buds!

My home-girls.

My mom and dad got us this awesome Cocoa Latte! We were so excited! Brig loves hot chocolate. They also got us a cute decoration that can be changed with the seasons. It is up in my house and I love it :)

My mom and dad got a fun present this year! With 4 drivers at home, and only two cars, one of which has over 250,000 miles, you can imagine that getting people places can be a real hassle! Both of my little brothers work, and of course my dad works, and my mom works from home, so the car situation was pretty much just miserable. Luke's grandma (aka Granny), hasn't been able to drive for the past year, so she had this car sitting around and Luke and Nicole thought that my parents could use it! And they are right! What a sweet Granny Luke has, to be so giving. The car may be old, but I'm telling you, it is in AMAZING shape. Unbelievably good even. Anyway, so that was a really fun surprise!

Bretton!

Another of my home-girls.
I'm realizing that I'm writing way too much, as usual, so that will be the end of it!


Friends Party:
Every Christmas season, Brigs friends try and get together and have a party. It is so much fun to get to see everyone, since we really only do about once a year for some of them!

Brig, Jer, and Dan. Dan and Danika were nice enough to host the event, and reserved the club house in their neighborhood so that we could all fit! There was a lot of yummy food, and as always, great conversation! We were missing a few people. Poor Heather had to work, so she wasn't able to make it. We were really sad not to have her there!
Dan was sure to bring the fish, and I made sure it was front and center in this pic.

Christina, Jen, and John. We were all very sad that Riley couldn't make it!

Group pic :)


Temple Square:
Brig loves going to temple square over Christmas. I love it too, but he is on a whole other level. His love for Christmas is pretty much unparalleled. We were so busy we had a hard time finding time to go. We decided one day that we were just going to have to make a quick trip. So that's what we did, drove down, saw the lights, and came right back home. It was definitely worth it! I'm so glad we went!

Typical face. Trying to look like a dork. And succeeding ;)

I call this my gypsy picture. I don't know why, I just feel like that's what I look like!
Temple square is always so beautiful, and I love the spirit that is there immediately when you step onto the grounds. I'm so glad that there are patient workers that spend so much time putting all of those lights up! And taking them down of course!

Random: The tree with ornaments and presents. We never did get a tree skirt, haha.



The real Christmas Eve:
So... This was my very first Christmas away from home! Turns out it was still a great one :) While I was, of course, a little bit sad, I had a great time with my other family and got to have some new experiences! For example:

Every year on Christmas Eve, the Crane's go out for Chinese! I don't think I'd ever even left my house on Christmas Eve before, so this was definitely a new experience. It was a very good time :) I do have one little tiny problem, and that is that I don't like Chinese food, but I can do tiny spicy and that's what I did! It was fun to see Brig get to experience what I know he was missing when he was with my family last year. I'm so glad that we have such awesome families that are so understanding about us splitting time over the holidays. It makes it so easy!

Like Uncle, Like Nephew

After Mandarin Garden, we went back to the Crane's for some good old Christmas Eve activities! First we did a Nativity...

Jophess and Mary (One of the nieces always calls him Jophess instead of Joseph, so now it's our favorite thing to say). A fitting part for him :)

Becki had this fun idea to break out the chimes and play some tunes! The kids all caught on really quickly and did great! It was a fun idea

This personally was one of my favorite parts of Christmas Eve! Jen had this super fun idea to do what she called a "Reindeer Dash"! The object was for a child to choose an adult to race and everyone was timed to see how fast they could go! The race began at the lowest level of the basement, and the racers had to run up to the top of the stairs, back down, climb through the "chimney," and then stuff a stocking for Santa. It was so much fun! The kids had a blast, and I think it will definitely be something that we'll continue doing!

I did not break the box, just in case you were wondering. That was not me!


Christmas Morning:
Wow! What fun to have Christmas Morning with so many people! It's been awhile for me! We had a lot of fun getting to watch the kids open their presents and also had a lot of fun getting to open our own of course!

Mick and Becki bought us some blinds! Hurray!

I gave Brig this tactical weapon light for one of his pistols, a knife (as if he didn't already have enough), and a shirt. He also got ski passes, another knife, some gift cards, and some other things from his parents and sisters.

For our family gifts, we got Inception, a cute decoration from JulieAnn, some towels, and some other things. It's hard to remember a month later!

Yay, yay yay! Brig got me this carpet cleaner! The dork went over the budget, but I was not going to complain! I was sooo excited! We tested it out just last week and it did a great job.
I also got some gift cards that I used to buy a couch cover (hallelujah!), some bulbs that are now sprouting beautiful flowers in my kitchen, some shoes, and some other things. Wow! What spoils!

Yummy Christmas Breakfast

At about 10:00 we went over to my parents house to see what they had got, and to hang out for awhile. They had an unusual Christmas morning, since most everyone was away. Christian and Bretton are the only two left at home! I was really glad we got to go over for a little bit :)

We got my mom and dad this scrapbook, and a roller (to help with stretching, since both of my parents are avid runners). I got them this funny card too that said, "Yes, I know its Christmas morning... And Yes, I'm still going for a run." I though that fit them pretty well.

After my parents, we went back to the Crane's for a yummy Christmas dinner and got to sit around and be lazy and have a good time socializing! All in all, it was a pretty darn good holiday, and as always, I'm so glad to have been able to spend it with my very favorite person, who always seems to make it extra special.