Christmas Condensed

Hellloooo Friends! I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and are looking forward to a great new year! I know I did, and I am! :)

I started out December ahead with lots of things done and lots of things planned, then life happened and I barely got everything done before Christmas!

 

The major life stuff that was going on was that my sweet Nana had another heart attack at the beginning of December and fell and cut her ear and hurt her back. Poor Nana :( We celebrated her 82nd birthday in the hospital. Because of her heart and her injuries she wasn't able to go home right away, so she has been in a Rehab Center since leaving the hospital. She is doing pretty good and hopefully we will have her back to her own home before long! It made for a tough December, for her and for us but as always she has a great attitude and our family is so blessed to still have her with us.

So to recap December...
I of course put up a tree and decorated. I also made two of these Tomato Cage Trees to decorate the outside of my house

The Christmas committee at my work had the cutest idea....the week and half before our Christmas dinner every morning there was a little treat and Christmas song lyrics on our desks. I snapped a picture of a few of them. I loved it, I couldn't wait to get to work every morning and see what the treat was! It really helped get me into the Christmas spirit.

The popcorn was "Let it Snow" (I brought some corn for popping...too cute!)

My friend and I continued our tradition of Christmas light looking while hot chocolate drinking...

A few days before Christmas we finally got our first snow!

 

My sister and her family came for Christmas and I got to spend time with my sweet, fun, beautiful nieces. Oh how I love these girls!

I also made a gift (it may or may not have been at the last minute...don't judge...we all do it right? right? ha ha!) using the same technique I used HERE & HERE,with a bit of twist. My sweet friend made me the stencil with her Silhouette. It made the process so easy! A Silhouette is so on my wish list!!

I assembled my supplies on the only place I had free (I was cooking in the kitchen, wrapping in my craft area) I set up my work area, complete with a peppermint hot chocolate. (I sure did a lot of hot chocolate drinking this year!)

And the finished product:

Which brings me to the thing I love most about Christmas, the reason for it.

Jesus

He is the true reason for the season. May His love and blessings fill your heart and your home in the coming year and always.

So that is my condensed version of December/Christmas. It was great, I hope yours was too!

Join me on Tuesday for the top posts of 2012 and a preview of some things I have planned in 2013!

Happy New Year friends, stay safe!