Christmas 2009

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas! Jason & I could not travel to Virginia this year (due to me being SO pregnant), so we were unable to spend the holidays with our friends and family back home. While we were sad that we could not be with our loved ones, we were also appreciative of the fact that this will be our last "calm" holiday for a very long while!

To get us in the holiday spirit, on Christmas Eve we baked pumpkin spiced cookies & a pumpkin pie & also watched a few Christmas movies that were on TV. Christmas morning we opened our gifts from one another. Jason gave me a lot of scrapbooking supplies, including a nice paper cutter, some stickers/embellishments and some scrapbook papers. I also received a calendar (it's a tradition for Jason to give me a new calendar for each new year), a huge box of Post-It Notes (I go through these things quickly with all of my list-making) and a coupon organizer (I've become quite the thrifty shopper now that we have a child on the way!) :-)

I gave Jason the "Call of Duty 2" video game for his PS3, the new book by Dave Ramsey called "Total Money Makeover", and the 2nd season of "Rome" on DVD. We are also getting each other a joint gift - a new DSLR camera! We plan to purchase the camera with gift cards that we received from my parents, brother Jacob & sister-in-law Ashley, plus we'll have to put some money with it. We can't wait to have a new camera to take pictures of Easton!

Here are some pics of us opening gifts on Christmas morning:

All of the gifts under the tree

We were invited to Christmas dinner by Greg & Linda Benda - Greg & Linda are the parents of Mike Benda, who is one of Jason's Marine recruits. Dinner was absolutely AMAZING! We started with a cheese tray and crackers, along with any alcoholic beverage you can imagine. (& non-alcoholic peach champagne for me!) Around 5pm we were called to the dinner table - it looked like something you would find in a fancy restaurant! The centerpiece was gorgeous and there were settings for five courses. We began with a delicious mushroom soup, then had a poached pear to cleanse our palate. Next was salad, followed by a broiled lobster tail. We then had lime sherbet, again to cleanse the palate, and finally the main course of prime rib, twice-baked potatoes & French green beans. Each course had an accompanying beverage, such as champagne, white red wine, Merlot, and finally a cordial (none for me though). We were all SO stuffed, so we moved into the living room. After some digestion time, Linda served our choice of cappuccino or espresso, along with a yummy Italian cream cake topped with homemade raspberry sauce. It was undoubtedly one of the best meals that we've ever had, and we were so grateful to be included in the Benda's Christmas celebration.

After dinner, we were full & tired, so we headed home to relax. We did a few things around the house and then headed to bed. It was a great day!!!