Christmas Season 2016 - Part 1

November was a pretty rough month for me, and though December wasn't perfect, I did feel like I was improving slowly but surely. Despite not being 100%, we actually got a lot accomplished in December. So, here it goes...

The Tuesday of the week of Thanksgiving, I took Briana to a pottery painting place to paint a new mug for Doug for Christmas. This has become a tradition of ours. She did an amazing job on his new mug...

She wanted it to say "Grill" and have flames on it because Doug loves to grill so much...

I started the Christmas decorating process in my master bedroom. Bri and I got the tree decorated and Mei Mei did absolutely nothing to help... :)

She did enjoy sleeping near it though...

The weekend of Thanksgiving, we went to pick out our real Christmas tree that goes in our living room. There were slim pickings at Pike's and it took forever to agree on a tree. This was the tree we originally picked out...

Because of the drought, the above tree split up the trunk when it was being removed from the stake (it had happened to a few trees we were told). The customer service person that was selling it to us said the tree couldn't take up water with a split trunk. I'm actually grateful she was honest with us. But, we had to turn right around and go back to the tree section and look again. Ugh. We had to take home a different tree.

Here it is...

It ended up being really beautiful and I was very happy with it.

It needed a bunch of trimming when we got it home though. It was the tallest tree we had ever purchased - 8 feet - and the widest too. The point of it actually touched the ceiling when we stood it up (until I trimmed the point down a bit). It felt like the Christmas tree scene from "Christmas Vacation"...

But in the end, it was really pretty...

I have to admit, I really love my house at Christmastime...

Then Bri and I got busy decorating our China-themed tree...

And Doug did an amazing job with the lights and decorations outside of the house...

Doug bought a new Lego train to add to our village and Bri put it together...

She also decorated a gingerbread house...

She wrapped herself up like a burrito one day...

And of course, Red the Elf made his appearance once again.

These are his hello and goodbye letters...

A few of the places he hid in the house...

I received so many beautiful Christmas cards...

My Christmas cactus bloomed - right on schedule...

And, I actually managed to send out Christmas cards myself (wasn't sure I'd get to it)...

So that was the gift making, decorating and visiting elf portion of the Christmas season. Christmas season 2016 - part 2 is coming up next...

Chattanooga - Rock City's Enchanted Garden Of Lights

It was a bit drizzly when we arrived at Rock City ~ steady rain was going to come through later that night and we just hoped we could get through the gardens before the rain really hit.

We usually enter Rock City through the main entrance, but they are doing things a bit different now and had us enter in another way. I guess it's a way to get things moving better because it did used to get pretty congested the way they did it before...

They had us enter through this way now...

Something weird happened with my camera, but I got this cool photo...

We were directed to the Fairyland Caverns/Mother Goose Village first. This is usually the last thing we hit in Rock City, so it was a bit weird for us to go through it first. But since we were one of the first ones in there, it made things a bit less crowded...

Smiles heading into the cave...

I love looking at the all the statues going through the cavern...

They added a history of the Fairyland Caverns to the self guided tour...

Mother Goose Village...

Glowing...

We exited the cavern and started walking through the garden of lights...

Photo opp...

The toy soldiers are my favorite part...

The Arctic Kingdom...

Bri was excited to see the polar bears this year (this was new)...

The Ice Queen and Jack Frost were supposed to be in the Arctic Kingdom. But, they had been moved because of the drizzle to dryer land. We caught them at the North Pole Village...

The huge star on the mountain...

North Pole Village...

The gingerbread house, another favorite...

A little full disclosure here. Bri and I got into a small argument at this point. She was getting fussy because of all the picture taking (and I think she was a bit tired). And I got annoyed with her for being fussy about it because I had really pulled myself together to make this trip happy for her (and I was a bit tired - and slightly anxious ~ too). I also tripped over a tree stump right in front of the gingerbread house (landing on my knee), so we both needed a time out.

After a few minutes of breathing and some talking, we both calmed down. Bri got a hot chocolate and I got some water and then all was good again. I mention this because I don't ever want to act like things are always rosy and perfect in our world all the time.

Moving on, the girls spotted this firetruck and wanted a pic...

Moving toy soldier...

Enjoying some hot chocolate...

We stopped in a couple of shops before heading out...

We drove back to the hotel and called it a night. We said our goodbyes that evening ~ Kathy, Matt and Chani headed out early the next morning and we weren't far behind.

It rained all day Sunday (as we were driving home) and I was grateful we got through the trip without hard rain.

I was also grateful that I was feeling good enough to go on the trip. I think it was good for me to get out and have some fun. A big thank you to Kathy, Matt and Chani for helping us get into the Christmas spirit!