Christmas Festivities

So much has been going on since I got done with school and I just haven't had time to blog! Lots of Christmas festivities going on and only 2 days till Christmas, so let's play catch-up! 

Here we are leaving for our date to Rock Bottom Restaurant where we visited my amazing friend Sara who is a server there. We had so much fun that night & the food was soo good!

We started decorating the day after Thanksgiving 

James putting up the tree!

Nativity & Advent Calendar~gifts from our family last year

Our 2012 Christmas card.

homemade peppermint hot cocoa mix in mason jars...my gifts to coworkers & friends

close-up of the layers of cocoa. you can find the recipe here

number of goodie plates to our friends this year = 18

Candycane Kiss Cookies. 

Recipe from my friend Alex, you can find on her blog here

I went to 3 Christmas parties this year. James went to 2 of them with me.

The first was an all girls Christmas party. Some of the medical student wives got together and had food & a gift exchange. My friend Carly hosted it and I went home with citrus smelling hand soap, thanks Cim! I forgot to take pictures :(

The second party we went to was hosted by one of my dance friends Alejandra, who we call "Ollie" for short. I ate TONS of food, we watched Elf, played Just Dance 4 on the Wii, and played the gift exchange game. We went home with a Brita pitcher & some candy...thanks Sara! Here are some pictures.

Eating lots of delicious food!

Ollie even had homemade hot chocolate with frozen whip cream stars!

Love my dance fam. Dom, Sara, Ollie, & us.

Ollie was a perfect host! 

Dom, Sara, James, Chelsea, Celia, Andy, Ollie

My beautiful dance bestie, Sara!

James & I were so excited when a gift arrived from Nana & Grandpa!

Harry and David Gourmet Gift Towers are sort of a Fakkel family tradition.

We loved eating the juicy pears, chocolates, & other goodies this gift had in all those boxes!

Thanks so much Nans & Gramps! This brought back lots of great memories :)

The third Christmas party we went to was hosted by the Killpacks, our good friends Luke & Jenna!

Food was amazing. James made chocolate chip cookies~his family recipe. We played two fun games that we also played last year. The candy bar game which involves two dice & lots of candy bars that you can steal from each other. The other game involved money wrapped in several boxes that you can only win by unwrapping only using your oven-mitt covered hands, and it also involved 2 dice. The boys had their money to unwrap, and the girls had theirs. James was so close to winning the money! I won the money for the girls game. It was so fun!

 This is the best picture, except none of the kids are paying attention.

Trevor, Chad, James, Than, Luke, Claire & Whitney, Nicole & Taylee, Me, Rex & Ixchel, Jenna & Eliza

 This picture is better of the kids but the flash was really bad near the boys so I just cropped it.

 Cutie Rex. His onesie says, "meet me under the mistletoe" I could kiss those cheeks without mistletoe!

 Our Christmas present to my brother Peter who is on a mission right now. He LOVED Herbie as a kid and we enjoyed watching these movies growing up. I think our favorite is Herbie Rides Again. I will hang on to this until he returns.
Our Christmas Sunday pictures

 Christmas Tree.

 Pine Tree.

Merry Christmas Sunday!

I found this anonymous note on my car window at work! I really did smile! It was such a nice surprise. Just a reminder to be nice to people this season, and all year long! I'm going to pass this on, and hopefully write nice notes throughout the year & leave them on car windows!

So remember, Happy Holidays, MERRY CHRISTMAS, & Smile! Have a fantastic day! 

xoxo