Christmas/New Year's 2013

I'm finally recapping our Christmas and New Year's. We had such a lengthy long break from work (yay, vacation days) that I took an even longer break from blogging. Sometimes I really enjoy doing nothing.

We headed down to visit our families on Christmas Eve. We spent the evening with my parents and sister, eating some Christmas goodies and exchanging our gifts. It was the first time in my life that I've ever missed Christmas with my dad's family. They had to schedule our annual Christmas Eve, Christmas celebration for lunch time and because we live out of state, we weren't able to attend. I guess getting married really does bring changes in your family traditions!

After our Christmas Eve celebrations, Brad headed home to his mom's house so that he could spend Christmas morning with her and I stayed home to spend Christmas morning with my parents for the last time :( I loved our yearly viewing of "It's a Wonderful Life" together. My sister and I also got our one early Christmas present - our Christmas pajamas to wake up in on Christmas morning. I don't think my mom will ever stop with this tradition - and I love that.

Jules came home for Christmas too!

Last time I have to say good night to this guy on Christmas Eve!

On Christmas morning, I woke up and opened Christmas presents with my family. Ate way too much of my mom's Breakfast Casserole and Cinnamon Rolls and then got ready to head over the Brad's for lunch with his family and celebrating our nephew's first Christmas!

My dog Snickers got a brand new outfit. Yeah, we dress her up...

One of my favorite Christmas presents this year.

My little sister and I in our Christmas pajamas.

 

The rest of our Christmas at home was a blur. We had two Christmas celebrations with Brad's family on Christmas. Spent Friday shopping at the new outlet mall by my parent's and finally saw "Catching Fire". Saturday night we celebrated Christmas with Brad's dad and stepmom. I had been bugging Brad about asking his groomsmen to be in our wedding. Then he went and surprised everyone with this. Who knew he was creative?

 

Brad has known for a while that he wanted to ask his dad to be his best man. It's actually a tradition in the South for grooms to have their fathers as their best men. I don't know that Brad actually knows that. He really just wanted his dad because of how close they are. He bought this shirt for his dad and he was so cute when he opened it. He read it a few times before realizing what it meant and he was so excited when he finally got it that he put it on and wore it for the rest of the night!

Brad with his granddad, dad, brother-in-law, and nephew.

His dad, brother-in-law, and nephew are all going to be in our wedding.

We officially have our final wedding party!



 

Sunday we celebrated Christmas with my mom's family and then headed back home to spend our New Year's at our own home. We spent the next three days, through New Year's, being lazy and enjoying being together. We got to ring in 2014 together! I'm so excited that our wedding year is officially here! On New Year's Day we finally celebrated our Christmas together. We decided to go small this year due to all our wedding costs and now have lots of movies to watch together and some new workout gear.

 

Happy 2014 from the future Mr. & Mrs. B

I hope I'm not the only one who has a stocking for their pet.

 

Brad thought we ran out of Christmas paper (we didn't) so he wrapped my gifts in boy's baby shower paper.

Isn't he thoughtful?

His Christmas haul.

My Christmas haul.

 

I can't believe this is the year we're getting married and that next year we will be married for Christmas. I can't wait to celebrate our first Christmas together but definitely don't want to rush this year away. We have so much to get ready for.

 

P.S. The day after New Year's Day we got some really unexpected and unplanned for news. We definitely didn't expect for this to be happening right now or so soon. But the timing is really perfect and I can't wait to share our news as soon as we can!