Pre-Christmas

Our Tree Hunt

Last weekend, we met up with my parents to go down to the Belly Acres Christmas Tree Farm (about 45 minutes away for us). We got down there and all of the good trees had already been cut down this season! The only ones that were left were way too short for us. After walking the tree farm for a while, we officially gave up and headed back to the car. We drove back to my parents' house and then stopped at a tree place up the street from them. We were looking around and Beth saw a 9 foot tree that she liked - it was supposedly going to sell for $100 but she managed to get it for about half-price!

We got the tree home and it was a monster (this seems to be a trend - see the story with bringing home the fireplace mantle). We set it up with Brandon's help (Mom and Dad provided commentary). Later that evening, Beth and I stopped by Target to get lights (after a long debate over Color/White, the colored lights won out - that is, after all, the fun way to decorate a tree!). We ended up with 4 strands of 175 lights for a total of 700 lights on our tree. It was fun to go through and put all of the ornaments on the tree this year (I've not had a tree at my place since I moved out)

Sunday -

The Sunday before Christmas, we went out to lunch with Ev and Mark at Applebees - that was a good time. From there, Beth and I stopped at Home Depot to pick something up, then we were going to go home but decided to reward ourselves with a trip to the movies (to see "I Am Legend"). After the movie we came home and took the opportunity to relax and hang around the house with nothing to do.

Christmas Eve -

On Christmas Eve, we woke up and did our best to get out of the house at a reasonable hour. We only had a few gifts left to get and wanted to make sure we didn't get stuck up against the clock later in the evening. I got a haircut while Beth made a trip to the post office, then we met up and wandered through some more stores. Once we got our shopping wrapped up, we headed home to make chocolate covered pretzels (the "tiny twists" kind, not pretzel rods - this was an in-store discussion as we tried to pick which is the "right way" to make chocolate covered pretzels). Bryan, Kerri, and the kids came by later in the evening and we got to spend a few minutes with them as they were out visiting people and playing "Christmas Bingo".

We put off actually wrapping presents until the last minute (who doesn't?). Beth wrapped at least 2/3rds of the presents. Partly because I'm slower, and partly because I was trying to get out of it. We got everything wrapped and together, set the alarm clock (more about this later), and went to bed.