Christmas Rewind

This year, I started wrapping gifts early to avoid the need to stay up all night on Christmas Eve.  I cleaned in advance so the house was alllll ready for Christmas.  It all paid off in the end because I was able to enjoy the holiday and able to rest when I came down with the FLU the day after Christmas.  We'll get to that... Let's conduct the annual Christmas rewind, shall we?

First, Munch and I ran some last minute errands but she looked so cute, I had to snap a few pics!

My brudder, Mike, and his wife, Ryan, hosted a Christmas Eve party at their house.  Ryan got all into Christmas!  She changed out every vase filler with bulbs, she covered every picture frame with garland - it was all VERY cute!  She made all kinds of Christmas goodies, she set-up a cute dessert display and the food was just awesome.  They made me look bad with their OUTDOOR decor(according to Munch, we're the only ones without stuff outside!).

It was too bad we couldn't stay long... We had to get to the church's program.  

The program was short and sweet with a youth portion and then the annual 12 Days of Christmas competition.  What's the 12 Days of Christmas competition you ask? Well, my parents assign each number to certain sections, groups and families and we sing the tongue-tied song as a group.  Each section has to stand and sing their number everytime... It becomes a hilarious competition to see who can be loudest.  This year was by far the funniest!

Around 9:00 p.m., we were finally home and ready to bake for Santa and his reindeer... We finally put Munch to bed at 10:30 after all of the traditions were finished:

I went a little different with the wrapping this year, I used chevron ribbon around the tree so when I saw the red chevron duct tape, I had to use it for the gifts!  WARNING: only place the tape on the front!  Wrapping a gift with duct tape could make it very difficult to open!

My favorite gift presentation was our gift for my sister-in-law, Ryan.  I used a hat box and cheetah ribbon! O and all of my family members got ornaments with their name on them. Isn't her gift lovely?

Mom's gift was beautiful too!

I also gave subtle hints like the one above.  We got Munch a nail dryer and I loved the appearance of trendy polish on the outside... It made for an adorable embellishment!

Christmas day was awesome! Dad surprised mom with gorgeous diamond earrings and a beautiful new ring! I'll share the deets randomly in the near future... When I need a love pick-me-up :)

I hope you've enjoyed reliving our Christmas and, as promised, I will NOW take down my decor, lol.  Don't you miss the glow of Christmas though?