This past weekend we kicked off our Christmas celebrations with David's company's annual holiday party. The first couple of years we attended this party, getting ready was always chaotic. We never started getting ready on time, things always took longer than anticipated, and there always seemed to be tons of traffic slowing us down on the drive to the location. As a result, the first few years we always missed drinks and appetizers and only made it to dinner with minutes to spare. My mom will never forget the year David drove her Tahoe through Boston like it was a race car just to make sure we arrived in time for the first course.
The last couple of years we have improved our holiday-party-time-management skills and have calmly arrived on time (even early sometimes!). That doesn't mean we don't have our own quirks - like David always takes longer tying his bow tie than he thinks he will (30 min does not equal 5 min) and I always say I'm ready and then think of five things that need to be done as we are walking out the door. This year's party was held at the Boston Science Museum. David has never been there before (it's on our Boston sites to do list), so we tried to arrive early enough to have some time to walk around the exhibits. That didn't prove to be possible, but we did spend some time wandering the halls (and playing with the musical stairs!) before enjoying the party. Here is a picture David's sister Katie (our chauffeur) took before we left. Notice that my mother's dog Coal doesn't want to be left out.
Saturday we took it easy and began to organize for Christmas. We first had David's work friend and his wife over for waffles (they stayed at a hotel in Boston after the party), and then we went Christmas tree shopping. We had talked about cutting down our own tree, until we learned that all cut-your-own trees in the Boston area were $65! That might sound like a reasonable amount to other city dwellers, but this seemed high to us. We decided to first give a local flower market a shot, and ended up with a nice narrow tree for $45. This is still much higher than we are used to spending for an equivalent tree in Vermont, but that's not unexpected :) We spent the evening listening to Christmas music and decorating our living room. The ornaments are a collection of things each of us have been given (or made as the case may be for many of mine) throughout our lives. We purchased the snowmen stockings last year at Michaels. The green stocking with no name is Pepper's - we got it last year expecting it to be be temporary! Now that he is officially part of the family, we'll write his name on there as well.
We don't have an abundance of holiday decorations, but we are slowly acquiring more. I personally like the house to look festive but still simple. This candle was a gift at the Milne Family Party last year and it is officially the only scented candle that David has ever liked. It smells like Christmas trees :)
More Christmas decorations!
David and I have had seven Christmas's together. Several of those Christmases were spent physically together (we have found an arrangement that works where we spend two days before Christmas with my Dad, Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with David's family, and Christmas afternoon/night and the following day with my mom), and one of those Christmases was spent as an engaged couple. This Christmas doesn't feel a whole lot different, but it does make us smile a little bit more often to think about it being our first Christmas as husband and wife!
Has anyone else gotten their tree yet? Do you like to decorate with homemade and "random" decorations collected over the year, or do you like to decorate using "theme" decorations (e.g., balls and/or bows of all the same color)? We hope you all find some great holiday cheer this year!
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