Our First Christmas in Our Home

I completely missed the boat on catching up on posts during my Christmas break.  I had some time off of work and fully intended to write but got swept up in relaxing, spending time with family, events, and seeing friends.  It was a really nice break.  We did a lot of binge watching Netflix, cooking together, and soaking up the comforting feelings of hosting people in our home.  There is a certain magic you feel when the house is clean, the food you cook is delicious, and you get to share it all with your favorite people.  One of the things we really enjoyed, although it was daunting at first, was decorating our “real” home for Christmas.  I say “real” because we now have a yard, a bunch of windows, a mantle, a stairway/banister, and all the other suburban spaces we never had before.  We definitely spent a little more than we meant to but at least we know the items we got will last a long time and we truly loved how festive everything felt. 

The mantle, banister, and outdoor lights were my favorites.  Here are some photos of our home all decked out for Christmas. 

We of course kept our annual Christmas party tradition alive.  The addition of our garage space for a photo booth/games and the fire pit for s’mores added a lot of charm and entertainment to the evening.  We were so thankful so many friends were willing to make the longer drive to the suburbs and it was fun introducing them to some of our newer friends and neighbors.  The most fun for us was being able to have Kyle’s cousin and David and his wife Katie as well as our friends Rob and Evan spend the weekend with us.  Having 4 bedrooms came in handy!  After everyone else left we sat around our kitchen table to talk, play cards, and ended up finishing off the Honeybaked Ham.  I remember thinking about the whole evening and looking around the table and feeling like my heart was so full that it might overflow in that moment!