1 December

The weekend Lens.....

Hello December!  So happy you are here!  Let the Christmas celebrations begin. 

Our Day started out Saturday with our annual candy cane making workshop.  They do it as a fundraiser for Make a Wish, WE always love it, really it never gets old.  

Next....off to get our Christmas tree.....we always say we're going to try a new place every year b/c it is slim pickings here and Josh insists on cutting his own tree.  BUT....it's right down the road so we ended up at Beech Ridge Farms again....for the 13th year (minus one when I was pregnant with Lucas and we bagged the whole thing and put up a fake tree.) It was cold.  It's always cold.

WE found our tree PRETTY quickly (again, it was cold).  WE wanted tall and skinny to go next to the chair in the front window.  All in ALL, once you get all the stuff on it, pretty much any tree looks good.

The traditional picture (sometimes we get a family shot, but this one was a hurry up and let's go shot....it was cold!)

Tying it to the roof of our van (this picture that includes the car might be cool to see in like 20 years)

And we got home to warm up with some hot chocolate in our Santa Mugs (we have 5 different ones that we have collected over the years)

And then while Dad was prepping the tree, we got out the ornaments (we have so many ornaments, seriously I have a problem with saving every little handmade, childmade thing).  the kids love looking through their own boxes and hearing the stories of the different ornaments, the ones for their first Christmases, their handprints, handwritten cards from my grandparents that have passed...the glass one that says 1950, the handmade needlepoint stockings.  It never gets old.  

The very best moment for me was when Josh unveiled the tree with all the lights on, and Bre walked Downstairs and said.....OH, MY, GOD.....IT'S BEAUTIFUL!  (Love how she always reminds me that it's the simple things in life that are the most important)

Then they decorated, with only a few casualties (and we really have so many ornaments we couldn't put them all up)

Then we wrote our letters to Santa....with a really cute letter I found on Pinterest.  Lots of Legos on their wishlists this year.

On Sunday.......We cooked out Thanksgiving feast (I worked on the actual thanksgiving this year).  We went out on a limb and ordered a farm turkey this year and cooked it on the big green egg.

Cooking a Turkey on a charcoal grill is no easy feat, but it came out amazing....along with a table full of fixings (my own cranberry sauce) and an 11 year old boy volunteering to say the prayer.

We are blessed.

(And we're going to be eating turkey for.like.ever.)