My Christmas in Pictures

  Hello, dear readers!

    I hope you all had a very merry Christmas with your families and friends! I had a wonderful Christmas at home with my family, and received many pretty things from my dear parents and sisters.
    Today I thought I would write a nice long post with lots of pictures from Christmas and the days preceding (because, um, I kind of took a lot of them,) so this will kind of be a review in pictures of my Christmas.
   

  

These are some of the Christmas cards that we received from family and friends, and below is a picture I took of our tree when it was getting dark, so you can see how pretty the lights look. :-)

These are the blackberry jam stripe cookies that Sadie made, one of my favorites! : )

   Christmas Eve was mostly spend baking and cleaning and wrapping presents. I basically spent the day running around the house singing Christmas songs and cleaning here and there and torturing playing with Oliver, but I also tried to be somewhat useful in preparations. :-) Sadie and I also dressed up the dolls in their finest attire for Christmas, and Sadie did their hair very nicely too.

   This picture shows a little better the style Sadie did on Millie's hair, which was very pretty. She also put some baby's breath in it from one of my Nutcracker bouquets. : P

   Also, my copy of The Dancing Master arrived on Christmas Eve! I had ordered it back in October and they said it wouldn't ship until January, so when the box came I thought it was a Christmas present and I wasn't supposed to open it. Then when my mom came home she said it was probably my book, and I'm afraid I went quite wild--you see, I've been waiting for this book for quite some time. It was such a wonderful surprise! And just in time for Christmas! I just finished the last book I was reading the day after Christmas so I've just started it and am not very far yet, but I hope it shall be as good as Julie Klassen's other books that I've read.

From the Dr. Quinn episode "Mike's Dream...A Christmas Tale".

   On Christmas Eve we had a quiet dinner at home, and then we watched a Waltons Christmas episode followed by a Dr. Quinn Christmas episode before going to a late Christmas service at a church in town (since our own church doesn't have a Christmas Eve service, which I think is a crying shame.) :( But anyway, the service was very nice, but I was very tired when we got home at around 12:30 and went straight to bed in anticipation of the day to come. :-)

   On Christmas day we got up early to a beautiful snow-covered morning and opened presents. Here are some of the things I got:

    From my parents:  In my stocking I found a lovely set of flowered stationary, a new pen, a beautiful jewelled hairclip, a pair of striped socks that promise to be darn tough (and have an unconditional lifetime guarantee : )), a set of bayberry taper candles, a little flowered flashlight and some maple sugar candies. I also received a new piano music book that has lots of popular classical songs and a beautiful new pink nightgown!

  From my sister Sadie:  I was very much looking forward to opening Sadie's gift because she had put it under the tree several days before Christmas (she always does), and I could tell by the shape that it was a book and CD, so for a while I had been speculating on what it could be! When I opened her package I found a beautiful copy Charles Dickens' Great Expectations and the gorgeous Out of Africa soundtrack! :-)

   From my sister Molly: Molly gave me a very nice large box with maps and postal marks from France all over it. It has clasps and a handle so it can also be carried like a suitcase.

    The box is just the right size to store all my old letters from pen pals and stationary, so that's what I decided to use it for. Here's a picture of all of my letters and cards in it.

Me with my new hairclip

  My friend and former babysitter gave me this lovely white infinity scarf, which is very cozy and warm and I have been wearing it around the house, it's so comfortable! These are all the rage with the girls I was in the Nutcracker with, so now it's kind of nice to have one of my own to wear. Makes me feel a bit frou-frou. :-P

Oliver was tuckered out from all the excitement and decided to take a nap under the Christmas tree. :-P

    From my parents, Sadie received a DVD of the gospel-musician family, the Collinsgworths. Some of our relatives introduced us to their music a few years ago and gave us one of their DVDs, and even though gospel music isn't usually my favorite, I really enjoy their music. We watched the DVD after breakfast and then we watched parts of it again later when my grandparents came over for dinner. Their DVDs are a lot of fun to watch and I especially enjoyed their music on this one!

   The Collingsworths have actually come to my aunt's church a few times in the past, and just the other day we heard from her that they're coming again this November! My mom said of course we'll go see them, and we might even be able to meet them since my aunt works at her church and has "connections". How exciting!

Oliver, looking rather panicked after just having a piece of wrapping paper tossed onto him. : P In this picture you can also see my "darn tough" socks.

   My grandparents came over in the afternoon for dinner and we gave them their presents and my sisters and I played some of our new music. Then in the evening we watched Home Alone, which my mom bought last year but I had never seen before. I wasn't expecting to like it very much, but it was actually hysterical and I liked it more than I thought I would. But the poor kid! Being left home alone while his family went to France?!? That would definitely be scary. Also I didn't expect to like the kid as much as I did, but I kept finding myself thinking, wow, he's really smart! And the robbers, though perfectly horrid, were absolutely hilarious too. I was surprised how much I actually enjoyed it!

  Tomorrow we are doing music at our church and then in the afternoon we have a Christmas party that my mom organized for her side of the family. There's going to be a gift exchange and I still haven't gotten a gift for it yet! Yikes! I'd better find something quick! Also, my Grandma has commissioned me to sing the old Irish song Galway Bay, because my Grandpa and his relatives are Irish. Here's a video of Chloe Agnew from Celtic Woman singing it.

                                             

    Isn't it gorgeous? Grandma gave me a recording of Bing Crosby singing it so I could learn the words, but even as much as I adore Bing Crosby, I think this version is probably my favorite.

   So! There's been a lot going on in the past weeks! There are also a few things coming up in the remainder of December and January of the new year that I'm looking forward to, including a New Years' Ball that my family has been invited to, my annual works-in-progress dance recital (at which I am performing the dance of the Sugar Plum fairy from the Nutcracker-- I can't wait! : )), and my sister's birthdays (and mine, come February). Also, there is a production of Wicked coming to a city not too far from where I live, so there is a chance, albeit a veeeery tiny one , that I may be able to go to see it! Now THAT would be exciting! : ) I've never seen the musical before but I've heard lots of good things about it (and plus it's a musical, so the odds are I'm going to like it), and I would really love to go see it live.

  I hope you are all having a blessed and joyful Christmas season! Have a happy New Years' and may the Lord bless you in 2014! : )

 What did you do on Christmas?

 Do you have any special plans for New Years'?