Our 2022 Christmas Activities

We had a really fun, very busy Christmas season.

 

Just one blip - Doug and I both got colds in December. His cold was less intense than mine per usual. I had to reschedule my plans the third weekend in December because I was just feeling too sick to see anyone. I will say as icky as I felt, it was nothing compared to the year before when I was sick with bronchitis and sinusitis and had laryngitis for about a month. This time, I was only sick with a head cold for about 4 days and then I felt better. So other than those 4 days, December was really good. I couldn't believe I got over it that quick - that never happens.

So on to the good stuff!

 

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Back in November, Briana and I sneaked over to the pottery studio so Bri could paint another mug for Doug for Christmas. It is a long standing tradition, and Doug looks forward to a new mug every year. Luckily, Doug has lots of likes and interests. It is pretty easy to come up with a new theme each year.  For 2022, Briana chose "Dr. Who" and painted a Tardis...

Here are all of the mugs Briana has painted for Doug for Christmas over the years (except 2020...due to the pandemic, she drew an amazing picture and uploaded it to Shutterfly)...

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Speaking of coffee, right at the beginning of the Christmas season, Doug got the sought after "red cup" from Starbucks...

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I purchased a gingerbread house decorating kit in 2021 that Briana never got around to making. She came across it during the Christmas season and decided to decorate the house. Since the kit was over a year old, the icing ended up being a bit stiff so I threw it away (and fyi - we never eat the candy in the kits). So, I had some chocolate frosting and white icing on hand in my pantry and voila - a gingerbread house masterpiece...

 

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 Doug, Bri and I saw "Anastasia" at the Fox Theater in December. We really, really enjoyed it - the singers were amazing. 

The outside of the Fox and the lobby...

Inside the theater (front row!)...

Of course, I couldn't take pictures during the performance, but here are some pictures I snagged off the internet of the musical. These are all the actual performers we saw in December...

It was a fun family night out.

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We had a delicious hibachi dinner with our friends, the C family (Bri's friend Meredith) - always a fun time!

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After a 4 year hiatus, my sister and I resurrected Christmas cookie baking/decorating day with the cousins (and my parents came to watch for a while).

The crew came over to my house. It was a day that was a lot of fun, quite yummy and a bit chaotic all at the same time!

The kids have grown so much...

Cookie baking and decorating madness...

These were Briana's "flooded" cookie creations...

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A few days after Christmas, we visited with our friends the M family (Bri's friend Chani). We had an absolutely delicious lunch (they cooked us beef wellington - we were seriously spoiled!) and a fun afternoon of catching up...

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And right after the new year, friends Amy and Mary came over for a nice lunch and an afternoon of conversation. This was the get together that I had to postpone due to my lovely cold. Friends Valerie and Imerie were supposed to join us for the rescheduled get together, but then they couldn't come because of sickness! Dang winter! They were greatly missed.

We ladies had a really lovely time...

Briana sewed the "Audrey II" that is sitting on her shoulder for Mary for Christmas. Bri really got into sewing on her sewing machine over the Christmas break.

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As you can see, we had a really busy Christmas season! It was really nice and full of memories. What more could I ask for? 

Up next, the last of my 2022 holiday posts (woo hoo!) - Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Hanukkah, New Years Eve and New Years Day.

Our New Family Room Christmas Tree

The tradition of purchasing a live Christmas tree has now ended for our family. We've had too many years of bad experiences trying to find a tree to continue on.

This is what I posted on FB back in early December...

"Gone are the days of a real tree for me. I am completely done. Too many frustrating years of trying to find the right one. After working on trimming the tree this year and putting up lights and garland (not ornaments yet), my tree has not taken in any water. I've never had this happen. I've had trees die on me earlier than expected, but not from the get go. I just know that Pike's never did a fresh cut on the bottom, even though they "said" they did. It is a pretty tree, but it is going to die soon not drinking water. Doug is not in town this week to help me figure something out, so it will die. We just ordered an artificial tree last night that will be here in a few days. This tree will come down and a new tradition will start. I'm done. I'm getting too old for this crap now. Bad trees. Bad service. I am just done. The tree is pretty for now, but will only be for a few more days. All that work on it for nothing. Thank you to those who suggested other options for real trees, but I'm tapping out now. I hope I will have the same Christmas-y feeling not having a live tree in my house, but I'm ticked and so disappointed right now. Time to move on."

We purchased from Pike's Nursery for years. And now I won't ever buy from them again. I wrote an e-mail to them about my experience and got absolutely no response. Just ignored. Never ever again. Horrible customer service.

We walked into Pike's on Thanksgiving weekend. We like to buy Fraser firs and the Pike's closest location to us had an abysmal selection of them. Very few trees and they looked horrible. So many missing branches. And even looking like that, they were crazy expensive. I even looked into getting a different kind of tree - and anything that looked pretty and decent - the price was absolutely ridiculous.

We then went to a different Pike's location. Bigger selection but still most of them looked horrible.

We didn't get this tree (see below), but this is what we were dealing with...

$155 for THAT. It basically had no branches on the bottom.

But, we ended up really happy because Doug did manage to find a pretty tree amongst the wonky ones...

We know that Pike's always does a fresh cut of the trunk, but we didn't witness them doing it this time. We forgot to bring cash for a tip, so we ran to get some cash quickly and then picked up the tree. Since we had never had an issue before, so we didn't feel uneasy about not witnessing them make a fresh cut.

We brought the tree home and put it in the stand...

We were quite excited because it was really pretty and we felt like we lucked out.

 The next morning I went to check the water level and it did not drink anything. That NEVER happens with a brand new tree. It usually drinks like crazy the first few days.

I tried to convince myself it was a fluke and decided to put the lights and garland on anyway the following day...

Instead of putting ornaments on right away, I held off to see what would happen with the drinking.

Nothing. It still didn't drink.

In the meantime, Doug had to go out of town. There wasn't much I could do because the tree was too heavy to remove by myself. I even tried putting holes in the trunk to make it drink. While Doug was out of town, we decided to buy an artificial tree online. We had been talking about it anyway. We loved our upstairs tree, so we bought the same type tree, just in a bigger size.

Even if the tree not drinking didn't have anything to do with not having a fresh cut, the trees were just bad all around. This proved it.

  Doug came back home and I removed the garland and lights. The needles fell like rain because the tree was already starting to die from not drinking for a week. We stuck in on the side of the house.

 Here is what was left of it...

I cut a couple of non-dead branches off of it and kept those through Christmas. You can see above all the needles that fell.

After a few days of anxiously waiting, the new tree arrived. I was a bit worried it might be too big for the room. It ended up being perfect! The tree is a little too tall for me to put on my normal star, so I went for an angel instead.

The new tree is a newer, upgraded version of our upstairs tree. The lights are super bright and it is so pretty. It has three light settings like our upstairs tree. It is beautiful.

I put on the garland and decorated it and I was so super happy with it. I have like a bazillion ornaments, so I needed a tree that would accommodate that.

Some of my ornaments...

So that is the story. I have to admit that I am happy I don't have to think about looking for a live tree next Christmas. My sweet friend Amy surprised me a candle that smells like a Fraser fir so I don't miss the scent of a live tree in my house. :)

It was a frustrating situation that worked out for the best in the end...

Our House At Christmastime (The Inside)

 

I love all the decorations that are inside of my house for Christmas. I don't love the actual decorating part of it (so much work), but I do enjoy it when it is all up.

 

Per tradition, Doug and I did buy a live tree for my living room on Thanksgiving weekend. We had it for one week and it didn't drink one ounce of water. We ditched the live (about to be dead) tree and bought a 9 foot artificial one to replace it. I will blog about that whole fiasco and the new tree in my next post. The new tree ended up being so beautiful and I absolutely love it. I didn't really miss the live tree after all.

 

See how pretty?

 

 

It has a colored lights setting, white lights setting and a "both" lights setting. We could change the lighting depending on our mood.

Here are some pictures of just a few of my other decorations...

My new 4 foot tree that holds Briana's Santa visit pictures and angels...

It was Mei's new favorite place to sit at Christmas...

My White House ornaments tree...

Our China-themed tree...

My upstairs tree (also with three settings)...

Mei's second favorite place to be at Christmas...

 

Doug set up our Lego village this year. He added lights to a couple of houses. It will take a while to get lights in all the houses (it is time consuming), but it will be amazing when it is all done...

My traditional mantle picture (daytime and nighttime shots)...

My wine by the fire...

 

And finally, our Christmas card (which I hang up in our dining room with all the other Christmas cards we receive from family and friends)...

 

There are a lot of decorations I didn't get a chance to take pictures of and I'll try to snap some pictures of them in 2023. 

I am usually one to want to take my Christmas stuff down not too long after Christmas is over, but this past Christmas, I was sad to take down my decorations and actually took my time with it.

Up next, the Christmas tree "situation"...