I absolutely love everything about Christmas. Jesus’ birth is pretty sweet, but honestly sometimes I love everything else that to me, makes up the Christmas season. I still feel the magic that I felt as a kid. And while I know that Santa doesn’t come to my house, part of me still believes that he exists, doing elfish, magical tricks through the sky on Christmas Eve. He represents generosity and joy to me, generally causing my heart and eyes to overflow with warmth.
This year, we attended 11 parties (3 being white elephant), received about 20 homemade ornaments, and got to spend our break in Washington with Jonathan’s family. Beginning on December 1st, Jonathan, his brother and I began a new holiday tradition of doing a 12 days of Christmas. We exchanged socks, candy, fruit, thrift store surprises, went to multiple concerts, watched many movies, and made some delicious treats.
We also got to share a special time with our dear Copelands. A slumber party, talent show, fondue, and thoughtful/hilarious gifts from each kid topped our list of heart warming moments.
We spent about 10 days with Jonathan’s family in Puyallup and in Long Beach, Washington. Long Beach boasts 3 world titles. First, world’s largest frying pan. It was big, but I was not impressed. Sorry Long Beach. Second, world’s longest beach. Possible. And third, world’s worst rip tide. Also possible. We spent much of the time doing puzzles, watching movies, sleeping in and eating huge cheeseburgers. It was very restful and it was a real blessing to get to spend so much time alone with the whole Morell family. We came back to Newberg just in time to celebrate New Years Eve with a delightful group of friends. You can read about that here. Our Christmas decorations are still up and probably will be until February 1st. So if you’re still needing some Christmas spirit, you know where to find it.

Note how excited Henry is to give Jonathan a coat “with gold buttons on the sleeve.”  Lily gave me a locket with her teeeeeny picture in it!

I designed a Morell family crest and printed sweatshirts for everyone.  Ed and Jonathan also received custom snuggies from yours truly.

The Kamikaze burger was 10 pounds.  We were speechless.

We took some much needed family pictures and played many rather competitive games of Rock, Paper, Scissors until we were sweaty on the beach.