carissa opened her home to us - all fireplacey goodness included.
isn't that a lovely tree? drea decorated the place into cozy christmas cuteness and was the most gracious hostess the whole weekend long. and speaking of that tree, with 9 girls all bringing gifts for each other, we had quite the pile under there! everyone gave gifts that were either homemade or found at thrift stores.
we had a few craft options for the evening - one of which was decorating an ornament for a friend whose name was drawn from a cup. i drew erica's and this was my ornament mid-way through decorating. i added white paint to the green and it turned out pretty cute!
nine stockings looked pretty cozy on the mantel - almost made me want to have 7 children! but not really.
another creative option was to decorate sugar cookies then package them up in boxes for the kids in an after school program at a local church. we creatively decorated the boxes before filling them.
later that night we watched 'christmas in connecticut' - a definitely cheesy old time christmas movie that some enjoyed more than others. the best part of the movie involved an intermission that resulted in a full-out chicago sing-along. who knew there were so many closet chicago fans in our midst?!
and here we all are in the timeless tradition of multiple timer shots :-) i don't know if i'll ever get tired of it.
after a night of slumbering peacefully, we woke up to indulge in a tasty christmas brunch and open our presents. everyone did SUCH a good job with their homemade/thrifty gifts!
we had a few craft options for the evening - one of which was decorating an ornament for a friend whose name was drawn from a cup. i drew erica's and this was my ornament mid-way through decorating. i added white paint to the green and it turned out pretty cute!
nine stockings looked pretty cozy on the mantel - almost made me want to have 7 children! but not really.
another creative option was to decorate sugar cookies then package them up in boxes for the kids in an after school program at a local church. we creatively decorated the boxes before filling them.
later that night we watched 'christmas in connecticut' - a definitely cheesy old time christmas movie that some enjoyed more than others. the best part of the movie involved an intermission that resulted in a full-out chicago sing-along. who knew there were so many closet chicago fans in our midst?!
and here we all are in the timeless tradition of multiple timer shots :-) i don't know if i'll ever get tired of it.
after a night of slumbering peacefully, we woke up to indulge in a tasty christmas brunch and open our presents. everyone did SUCH a good job with their homemade/thrifty gifts! our only regret was that we couldn't invite everyone we knew and loved - there were a few debates about people who weren't invited. just so you know, if you're reading this and feeling forlorn that you weren't there - we were feeling forlorn that you weren't there also! but there's only so many people that can fit in a house. there's a fine line between 'cozy' and 'chaos'.
maybe next year we'll have it in a bigger house so we can invite more people.
This looks really really fun!!
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