Christmas Traditions

I just realized that we are less then a week away from Christmas and I haven't done a Christmas post yet. Life has been absolutely crazy between drama at work that I'm really not going to get into and getting Brady settled at home. I figured I would get my favourite Christmas traditions post out of the way before Christmas is over and it becomes irrelevant.

Probably my favourite part of Christmas is getting our tree. We have cut down a real Christmas tree for as long as I can remember and it really doesn't feel like the season has started until it is up, making my house smell like pine. C has always had a fake tree, so this caused a bit of tension at the beginning of our relationship but I think I have finally won.

We always go the first weekend in December out to a tree farm somewhere in the country, we typically get lost, then spend some time running around in the snow until we find a tree and the boys cut it down. We then go into the lodge for hot apple cider or hot chocolate and cookies. It's so much fun and my whole family is always there, which is awesome because with the bust schedules that we all keep it's not very often that you will find us all in the same place. Here are some of my favourite pictures from this years trip:

Ready to go!

Our little tree

Cutting it down

Then of course we have to decorate the tree. I love decorating. We have so many decorations the my brother, sister and I made when we were younger and it's so fun to take them all out and look at them. C and I decorate several trees a year, here are some pictures from this year.

The decorating team at my house - Brother, his girlfriend, C and I

C in front of his parents tree

Our little tree that stays in C's room. We buy an ornament each year (there are only two on the tree because I keep losing them) so this is where we put them (when I don't lose them....)

We also have a girls baking day every year. My mom, sister, mom's best friend and I always pick two recipes each year and get together sometime in December to make them. We then divide them up evenly so everyone gets a good selection of goodies to take home. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures, the day is a bit busy to stop and take out my camera.

My final favourite tradition is something the bestest and I have been doing for a couple of years now. Instead of going out and agonizing over what to buy each other we pick a day and go out to the mall together. We get lunch, finish up some last minute shopping (that's normally me...this year I pretty much accomplished all of my shopping that day) and then we buy each other our gifts. The last few years we have been doing sweaters. We pay for each others and then swap them, this year we decided that we have enough sweaters so we bought each other season 1 of 90210. It's always fun, and good to hang out just us, something we really don't get to do often. It also makes the gift giving so easy. We guarantee that we get what we want, and we both spend the same amount. It's the perfect arrangement!