Our Valentine Christmas

Merry Christmas! We certainly have felt loved this holiday season. And we have enjoyed many fun and festive activities. We went ice skating with friends, picked out a Christmas tree at Mr. Wizard's frozen custard (see below), went to a Mannheim Steamroller concert at the fabulous Fox Theater, made gingerbread houses with the Gertsches and the Newmans (see below), attended a holiday party at the cozy Biehl home, shot some holiday breeze with Adam, Brain, Laurel, Ben and Liza around the Allen's fake tree with real pinecones, and trimmed our home with evergreen and poinsetta (my sister, Laurel, says we are the winners because we weren't too lazy to decorate this year...implying...). I also enjoyed a lovely evening with girlfriends while Mark was interviewing at UCSD. Some of my new girlfriends came over and we had holiday treats and watched "Meet Me in St. Louis." Being locals, we all had an especial appreciation for the beginning of the trolley scene when they take the "Skinker" sign off the trolley. And a special thanks to the enrichment leaders in the Lindell ward for the holiday enrichment activity. I learned how to make the big red bow in the center of my evergreen and poinsetta garland (see below). THANK YOU SO MUCH to everyone who has helped make our St. Louis Christmas so wonderful. The very best part has been the love and the friendships. I can't believe how lonely I was just a couple months ago. The last month has been a very, very happy one for me and it is because of everyone who has made Mark and I feel loved and appreciated. I hope you enjoy the following visual snippets of our fantastic holiday festivities:

Here you see a couple pictures I took for our Christmas cards (sorry if you didn't get one this year...I was forced to stick to a family only policy because of all of the fun I've been having and my compulsive need to design my own cards). I'm sure I looked silly to all the passersby on Wydown, running to and from my tripod in short sleeves in the freezing cold.



And here you can see some of our festive trimmings. Notice the Mexican nativity (I love it!), the bow I made at enrichment, and our lovely Christmas tree in three different lighting scenarios.





Gingerbread houses! We had so much fun. (I stole the pictures from Chelsea and Kevin's blog.) Pictured first are Jillian, Chelsea, and Kevin Gertsch. Then Blake and Marie Newman. And finally, US!




Since we are leaving for Colorado and Columbus, on Friday the 19th at 5 pm (YAY!!!), we decided to open our presents to each other on Monday. (Family Home Evening!) Laurel is staying with us this week, so she enjoyed the festivities with us and took some much appreciated documentary photographs. First you see Mark, fake-grumpy because he had to wait for me to do all kinds of chores before I was "ready." Then you see our before picture. And then, the after picture. If you look closely you will see that I got "Dance, Dance, Revolution Universe 3!" FUN! If you like to dance-dance, you should let me know and I will arrange a dance-dancing party. Don't worry, we aren't very good.




And finally...drumroll please...the highlight of our first 2008 Christmas post...

...We've elfed ourselves!! Thanks to jET for the idea. And thanks to OfficeMax and Jib Jab for making it all possible. Seriously, this is hilarious, so if you have trouble loading the video, be persistent.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!
p.s. We can't wait to see you fam 1 and fam 2!