Tag Archives: gifts

Merry Christmas!

If you follow along on our Instagram account, you’d see that we had a really quaint Christmas eve dinner at home, just the two of us. A clove ham simmered away half of the day making the home smell heavenly! When I got home from work I got right to it whipping up some sage sweet potato gratin, creamed spinach, and a nice green salad. Everything was decadent yet pretty light and healthy. Mmmmhmmmm Getting in all those greens! (Sorry all the photos are over on Instagram here..)

Christmas Morning we were pretty casual and leisurely opened our gifts. Being just the two of us here not off jet-setting our holiday, it sort of felt short this year? I can’t really explain… It was absolutely lovely, just a different sort of feeling that’s hard to put into words. Honestly, this time of year you can’t pay me to leave the living room. I LOVE the Christmasy feeling in our home, the decorations we’ve collected from our travels around the world, The tree glowing in the evening making it even more cozy. Ah! I just LOVE it! ….Now the only thing we’re missing is a roaring fireplace to cuddle up next to. Perhaps our next place/residence will have that? Wink-wink.

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^^Santa dropped off a new treddy for us!

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Mr. B made sure that he got the traditional Christmas B breakfast going. Anyone following along, outside of our family, that is familiar with dried beef gravy, or SOS? Mmmm it’s their family tradition that I absolutely love and have definitely become accustom to! For not having a local Pennsylvanian butcher near by, I’d say he did an awesome replication.

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Christmas evening we were invited to have Christmas dinner with good friends. I took along a healthier festive peppermint brownie cake.

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We had a really nice time helping cook an incredible dinner together. It’s really hard to pick a favorite, but if I HAD to give you some show stoppers… I’d have to say the ham with its excellent glaze and the British sticky toffee pudding. Mmmm but seriously, everything was delicious and made even better with the great company! Oh and we did our first Christmas crackers complete with crowns too! What fun!!

Merry Christmas dear friends!

Ps: We didn’t have a white Christmas, but did wake up this morning (the day after Christmas) to this…. Just as GOOD!

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2014: A Special Christmas Eve Surprise

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Holidays, especially Christmas, are incredibly important and cherished to me. Even more so now that I am an adult. I often get so wrapped up in trying to make so many perfect moments, that I forget to REALLY enjoy all of the special moments that surround the holidays. Does that make sense?

Recently, my grandparents told me about an elderly woman that puts up 26 themed Christmas trees each year in her home. 26! Some of the trees have over 4,000 ornaments! Seriously, I think that this woman can relate to trying to create year after year those special moments.

Thankfully, Mr. B recognizes my struggles, knows that holidays are very important to me and knows that I look forward to family traditions year after year. This man gently guides me back onto my jolly holiday train tracks when he feels or notices me starting to derail off into an ugly tinsel mess (you know the kind…it’s the silvery stands that you find months after your tree has come down). He provides me with ever so thoughtful and delightful distractions like the one he surprised me with tonight.

At about 6PM tonight I walked through the doors and was immediately greeted by a chef whipping up something that smelled AMAZING in my kitchen (Check out our Instagram account! It was Mr. B!). Yes, he was preparing a beautiful Christmas eve dinner for the two of us to share.

We started with shrimp cocktails (family tradition), and a homemade French onion soup. Then for the main we enjoyed medium cooked steaks that were served with a green pepper sauce, accompanied by a side of salted boiled potatoes and broccoli. Yep. Adult Christmas IS just as good as it was being a kid.

Dinner was only the beginning… this man, the man that I married, then so thoughtfully wrapped up every single unopened package that was mailed from our family and friends for Christmas so that I’d feel that they were with us more so on Christmas morning. YES, 100% truth! These neatly wrapped packages were nestled under our tree with color codes that he explained identified the person it was from. Still words cannot express just how special he made this Christmas eve for me.

Still wordless… Thank you Mr. B. Thank you!

I hope your holidays are just as incredibly special.

Care to share some of your family holiday traditions?

Home For The Holidays

You know, I’ve been humming that Christmas tune in my head all week…I think you know the one…

“Oh there’s no place like home For the holidays, ‘cause no matter how far away you roam, if you want to be happy in a million ways, For the holidays, you can’t beat home, sweet home .”

Really, besides the Grinch, who doubts the lyrics of a Christmas tune anyways?

To think just a few short days ago, I was sitting on the plane becoming so overwhelmed with these crazy persons thoughts about going home for the holidays. Feeling guilty and anxious already about making sure everyone has around the same time to spend with us before even stepping foot back onto US soil. EEK! Can you relate?

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Thankfully that anxiety subsided somewhere in the air over what I’m guessing was the state of Washington.

I’m happy to report, We Bees are having such a wonderful trip back home! So much delicious home-cooked food and time spent with people we love so dearly.

For now, I’ll leave you with a few pictures from our merry little Christmas!

Typically we all attend Christmas Eve service but due to the road conditions we thought it would be best to stick close to home.

Christmas Eve with the traditional snack attack fest, this year held at my mothers house.I couldn’t believe the wonderful spread of snacks that she put out for us. Shrimp, spicy cheeses and ring bologna, cookies, and middleswarth chips. I loved watching my niece and nephew. They seriously sprouted by like weeds! I am sure I have mentioned this before in a past blog post, children always put time into perspective for me.

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Followed by opening gifts at the in-laws. Any occasion to involve gifts my sweet sister in-law gets super excited and cannot wait to tear into them, hence gift opening on Christmas eve. It always makes me giggle because her brother is exactly the same! He also is the type to get super excited to give me a gift, what a pair these two.