Gingerbread Houses

Our favorite Christmas event in Seattle is the Gingerbread competition/display at the Sheraton hotel.  Several architectural firms in the city volunteer to create magnificent gingerbread houses which are displayed in the hotel lobby.  People come to see the displays and to donate money to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Fund.  The theme for this year's contest was "Home for the Holidays".  Last year's theme was "Hollywood".  Here are a few pics of this year's and last's favorites:

Tree House

Mr & Mrs Clause with Rudolph

Futuristic Hometown

Seattle's Troll

Merry Christmas!!!

I just love Christmas!  I've never been away from my parents at Christmas in my life, but this year Jeff and I really wanted to have Christmas at our own home.  So, despite the low chances for a White Christmas, we made plans to stay in Seattle and Jeff's parents came to join us.  We planned a bunch of fun things.

  

In the heart of Leavenworth

Pie Night!

The shopping seemed to last for ever this year, but we finally finished up on Wednesday.  We ended the day on Wednesday with a Pie Party!  We brought a pumpkin pie.  There were about 10 pies there - our favorites were the Raspberry Cream pie, Apple Cranberry pie, and Marionberry/Blackberry pie.  

Leavenworth

Thursday we headed to Leavenworth, and adorable Bavarian village about 2 hours east of Seattle.  I just love that place!  We shopped and ate and enjoyed the snow and lights.  

At the Gingerbread displays

Christmas Eve we went to one of my favorite Seattle Christmas displays - the Gingerbread House Competition (see next blog post).  We delivered treats to friends and then dug into an amazing (if I do say so myself) Mexican feast!  We ended the night with some Luke 2 and Christmas stories (and some last minute wrapping).  

Christmas morning we got spoiled rotten - partly by other people but mostly by ourselves!  I guess next year we should stick to our budget!  Oh well!   

Merry Christmas to all and to all a Happy New Year!!!

Broken window panes

My all time favorite Christmas song is "The Christmas Waltz".  If you don't know it by the title, it starts - Frosted window panes, candles gleaming inside, painted candy canes on the tree..  It's a wonderful, bright Christmas song that fills my little heart with joy everytime I hear it - but mostly when I hear Karen Carpenter sing it.

Anyway, that's not actually what this blog entry is about, that just explains the title.  The week before Thanksgiving, Jeff and I painted our living room.  We also wanted to paint the french doors in the living room since they had never been painted before - not sure why the previous owners never painted the gray steel door to match the rest of the room, but whatever!

In the house I grew up in, we would pull the panes off of the french doors to clean the windows all the time.  I figured all french doors were made to have the panes removed periodically for cleaning since nobody should have to clean a full sized glass door one little square at a time.  So Jeff and I took the inner panes off and washed the doors and windows.  Unfortunately, we ran out of time to paint that night so we just left that task for the next day and headed to bed. 

In the wee hours of the morning we were abruptly awoken by a loud crashing noise.  I, of course, stayed in bed and sent Jeff to check it out.  He reported back saying, "I told you we shouldn't have taken the panes off the doors!".   Sure enough (and luckily on just one of the doors) the entirely glass section had fallen out of the door and was laying on our back deck.  To make matters worse, it was freezing and raining that night.  Luckily, the glass hadn't broken (still not sure how that happened).  So we picked up the glass section and put it back in the door but couldn't quite get it lined up perfectly.  Since it was 3 in the morning, we decided to secure it just enough so that it wouldn't fall out again and finish the job at a more reasonable hour. 

After work that day we went to finish our task.  One of the screws hit the glass just right as we were screwing it in a shattered the entire window.  Awesome!  Long story, not so short, we just got the door fixed last week and we will never remove the panes from a door again!  And no, we still haven't painted the door. 

12 Days of Christmas

Aside for being the cutest man alive, Jeff also happens to be the sweetest man alive.  Each year Jeff does the 12 Days of Christmas for me.  The first year he did it, we were dating and he would drop gifts off on my porch early in the morning.  Most of the gifts that year were edible.  The next year was the first year we were married and he purchased most of the 12 gifts.  Last year, the gifts were more personal, like getting up to exercise with me and giving me massages with just a few edible treats mixed in. 

So far this year, the gifts have been very personal, but most aren't too personal to share.  He has had some really good story ideas for a while now that I always bug him about writing down and submitting for publishing so he's given me written copies of those stories.  He gave me a 30 minute massage today.  He also fixed the glass in the back door (which broke right before we left for Thanksgiving!).

Isn't he wonderful!!!  It's always a good Christmas with Jeffy around!  Yes, I call him Jeffy.  

The Best Christmas Program Ever!

We have a wonderful choir director at church, Eileen, who always does such a great job with our musical numbers.  She had a very cute baby boy in November which left us choir director-less right before Christmas.  So, out of the kindness of my heart and thinking "how hard could it be to put together 5 musical numbers in 5 weeks", I stupidly volunteered with another friend to organize the christmas program and direct the choir!

It was way more work than I anticipated!  Some of the difficulties were getting people to actually show up for choir practice, coordinating schedules for music practice, and not having a pianist until after Thanksgiving. Yikes!  It didn't help that I've been really busy at work this month and had to plan the work Christmas party. But enough complaining...

Today the program went off without a hitch and the choir performed beautifully!  I think the whole congregation really enjoyed it.  I'm just glad I can sit back and enjoy the Christmas season now!  Looking back, I'm not sure why I let it get me so stressed out anyway...I guess I need to lighten up! 

Catch up time

I'm way behind on my posts!  I haven't even written about Thanksgiving yet!  We had a great time in Reno.  We were there for an entire week and were worried that the trip would be too long, but it ended up being just what the doctor ordered.  We did a lot of much needed relaxing and de-stressing.

My brother Brett and his wife Sariah were there as well, so it was just 6 adults, one dog, one cat, no kids.  Of course, we had a wonderful meal on Thursday followed by plenty of leftovers.  But the highlight for me was just spending time with family and spending time away from work!  The new Harry Potter movie was another highlight!  And of course, no Thanksgiving would be complete without kicking off the Christmas season by watching Muppet Christmas Carol!

Thanks to all in attendance for making this year's Thanksgiving holiday as wonderful as can be!

A new kitchen!

Jeff and I repainted our kitchen and transformed it from a bland, country style to a fresh and bright gathering area.  People often say their kitchen is the family's favorite room in the house; although it's just the two of us, this seems to be the case for our little family as well.  What can we say?  We like to eat!  It's nice to have this all-too-important room feel bright and cheery especially as we try to get Jeff off to seminary with a smile on his face at 6:15 in the morning!  I still need to find a new light fixture for above the sink - all in due time.