It’s Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas

With everything going on the blog has suffered some neglect.  It looks like I owe everyone some updates not only about Christmas decorations but also a recap of our Thanksgiving/Hanukkah.

So let’s start with the Thanksgiving/Hanukkah recap. It was a great time.  We celebrated at Steve’s dad’s house and there were about 16 people there.  Usually there is just a small group of us so it was a fun change having all those people around to celebrate with.  Since the two holidays wont over lap again for another 78,000 years we obviously had to make T-shirts to commemorate the occasion.  Below is the only photo Steve and I took together the entire holiday weekend. There was too much eating and drinking going on.

While we lit the menorah on Thursday night we had a traditional Hanukkah meal on Saturday night. There was a slightly small group for that and while we we didn’t have any custom shirts, there was plenty of amazing food.  Hanukkah is a dairy holiday so there were bagels, cream cheese, smoked salmon, egg salad, blintzes, and my favorite…..latkes. Below is a photo of our full spread and me taking my turn lighting a candle on the menorah.

Now on to the more recent holiday events! I set up and decorated our Christmas tree…..that includes deco mesh! I decided to take the traditional route and weave it throughout the tree branches. For my first time I think it turned out pretty good.

I also finished up the mantel in the basement with red berries, ribbon, and our stockings.  Oh, and you might notice that there is also a T.V. on the cabinet.  Thanks to a great Cyber Monday deal and a gift card I got for Hanukkah we were able to get this item checked off our basement to-do list.  I really like how the mantle turned out, and now that we have a T.V. down there I get to enjoy  it since this has become my unofficial wrapping room.

Then last weekend Steve and I made our annual visit to the National Christmas Tree on the Ellipse in front of the White House.  We went on Sunday night so the crowds were pretty light.

Oh and I also scored some major Wife of the Year points by making Steve the only Christmas cookies he likes – gingerbread – from scratch! I even busted out the confectioners sugar icing with coordinating food coloring.  They turned out too good.  I can’t walk by the tin without eating one.  Good thing I only made a half batch.

Phew! I know that was a long post, but I think I have you caught up on everything related to the holidays that has happened in the Precker home over the last month. Thank you all for all of your kind words about Steve’s grandmother and for sticking with us during this challenging time.  It really meant so much to the both of us.